This Ebony Bird Beguiling
by legendarytobes
Summary: Set in an AU s1 where during 1.12 "TeamLucifer," Lucifer searches Chloe for wings and finds the detective has been hiding quite the secret.
1. Chapter 1

18

**This Ebony Bird Beguiling **

"You've been agitated all week, and I understand."

Lucifer regarded the detective before him. There was no way she could fathom even a fraction of the things bothering him. For some reason, he was bleeding around a mortal. A _mortal_ had shot him, and her very presence made the impossible happen. After all, who had ever heard of The Devil with a stubbed toe. Unthinkable until this morning. Now, there was some nutcase who'd taken playing at cult games too far and was doing horrible, unspeakable acts in _his_ name, when the last thing on earth he wanted was for anyone to give up free will and to worship him like his Father's flocks of useless sheep did for Him. Not to mention he was already keyed up from the conversation earlier today. No one would sign up to be reviled for all eternity, not ever.

But it had sparked something in his brain, something he couldn't stop running over in his mind. Now that the detective had sent her spawn back to bed after the utterly useless Kraken story, Lucifer needed to know. He could not tolerate it if she were yet another of his Father's games, if she'd been sent to destroy him like the proverbial Trojan Horse.

"You don't understand anything. I don't want a sodding cult. I just want to find whoever is tearing these kids apart and clear my own name. Not that I've done it, but I certainly don't desire for anyone to do this supposedly for me."

The detective shook he head. "No, that's not it. This is different. Whatever this is-luring Trixie out to grill her about any weird birthmarks I have, avoiding my calls, trying not even to ride in the car with me anymore. Something more weird than normal is up with you, so spill. What in the world is going on?"

She carried such confidence for such a relatively little thing. Yes, the detective was taller than Linda, not much of an accomplishment, but in a man's man's world of cops and robbers, she wasn't much to write home about. Even with her firearm and her training, it wouldn't take much to fell her. With someone like him, she wouldn't even _see_ him move if he so willed it. But she still stood there, hands on her hips and her piercing blue stare fixed on him as if she could melt him where she stood with just the glance.

Lucifer clenched and unclenched his jaw before speaking. "I want to see your back, right between your shoulder blades."

"I'm not sleeping with you. We covered this time and time again, Lucifer. I thought after the weird pick-up artist case you were getting better about this. After you turned me down that night at the penthouse with all the innuendo at my expense about Rosemary's baby, I figured you'd passed on that idea completely, and we could just be _work_ partners."

He scoffed. "It's not about that."

"What is it about?"

"It's about _trust_, detective. I need to know exactly who and what I'm dealing with here. So, if you wish to continue working together, I would like to see your back."

She frowned at him. "Is this about your scars? Where you said your dad cut off your wings?" The detective grimaced then as if trying to accommodate that level of his so-called delusions was too much for her to cope with this late at night.

He inched closer to her, hands held up. "_Maze_ cut them off because I asked her, and she's loyal to me. I needed my very real, actual wings gone so my Father couldn't yank my choke chain any longer. If you don't believe me or think I'm mad or just don't have any wings, then you won't mind if I look."

"Fine," she said, turning around and adjusting her shirt so that he could view the flat expanse of pale skin across her back and shoulders. "If this gets your head back on the case and keeps you from waking up my seven-year-old at midnight, then just get it over with. But if this is a weird sex thing, I will shoot you."

"Duly noted, detective," he replied, tone clipped.

It took a moment, even with his paranoia roiling through him to actually touch her skin. Foolish that. He'd touched so many men and women over his sojourns to earth, but this wasn't about sex. It was about…he wasn't sure what. The detective was wholly something different, and she had been ever since he'd met her. He couldn't get her to open up to his desires, and she _wounded_ him, made him vulnerable. And yet, she'd thrown himself at him and for the first time in his very long and wicked life, he'd declined her affections. Old Scratch had deferred to chastity.

There was definitely something off about her, something utterly pear-shaped.

And maybe that was what bothered him the most. If he touched her now, found the wings he'd been looking for, then whatever small inroads they'd made all this time-her comfort after Father Frank's demise, their reconciliation and better rhythm after his attempted stint as a saint, and that moment of maybe understanding when she'd almost touched his scars-would be ash. No, worse, they'd be nothing more than additional lies on the pile.

Yet another manipulation from his blasted Father.

"Are you doing this or not? Like I said, I have no patience for games tonight, Lucifer."

He was never a devil to back down from a challenge. Finally, he set his palm flat over the expanse of one smooth shoulder. Then, Lucifer took his other hand and touched the other. They felt normal, but so would his shoulders if touched there. It was the musculature underneath at the base between the two where the second joints were located, where angel wings somehow-bugger all if he understood the mechanics of it, something more for Amenadiel's scholarly brain-fit under the skin. Lucifer merely needed to run his fingers over that small patch of skin and prove that whatever the detective was, she wasn't some younger sibling forged after his Fall and heretofore unknown to him and then sent to smoke him out.

To toy with him.

"Are you done?" she demanded, tone sharp.

"One more spot," he replied, his throat dry as the Sahara. His fingers met each other at the middle of her back, between the base of her shoulder blades, grazing feather soft over the skin there. It was normal, but he was barely touching her. He had to go deeper. Lucifer pressed, half-convinced his own paranoia against dear old Dad had gotten the better of him, when he felt it, the hard ridge of sinew and bone where the wing joints where hidden. "I knew it."

The detective froze and tried to step away from him, but he snaked one, strong arm around her chest and pressed her to him. The palm of his left hand pressed harder against the ridge of impossible bone and muscle buried deep in her back and pressed in a way only another angel would have known how. Well, an angel or whatever the fuck he was now.

The effect was instantaneous, like when a human was hit in the knee at the right spot to make it kick out. All reflex. The press of his palm hard against that buried ridge made the detective gasp and bend over. Lucifer darted out of the way quickly before two wings, black as midnight, darker than even Amenadiel's, spread from her back.

"Care to explain those, detective? Who's been delusional now?"

The detective glanced anxiously to door of Trixie's room. It was shut, but he could read the apprehension on her face, had seen it reflected in so many souls over the years both human and divine. In that instant, the fight and paranoia and anger leaked from him, replaced by only sorrow. For once, he'd thought he had something for himself. Just once.

He should have known Father better.

"Don't hurt her."

Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest and glanced to Trixie's room, to the colorful drawings that littered her door. He was somehow, even now, mildly amused that more than one sported a red-faced devil in them. "I've no quarrel with your child. I don't hurt them. I have never hurt them, and no matter what our Father told you when he gave you this assignment-and I know He was on about the incest crap back with that stupid bath toy ark of his but really, Dad-but I do _not_ hurt children. There are some things even the devil will not do."

She blinked at him; blue eyes a turbulent sea of confusion. "The hell?"

"Exactly. I told you I was Lucifer Morningstar. What did you bloody think I was saying? And you play dumb this whole time. For months and get me unawares and then what? Are these killings acutally your idea, detective? Make me feel for you, get me vulnerable too, then blame a serial killer on me?" He shrugged. "I admit, it's a sight more clever than anything Amenadiel has blundered through. I would hate to have to leave L.A. and Lux behind because I was on the lam."

"No, the part about…I don't know your Father. I wasn't 100% sure you were even Satan."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, try not to lie to my face now, _Chloe_, if that even is your real name. I assume it's something ending in an '-el' but see if I bloody well care on the specifics. You're an angel of the Lord and you were sent here by _our_ Father to trick me. Well," he clapped his hands together slowly. "Bloody well played. I did _not_ see that coming."

The detective laughed, and it tinged on hysterical. Her wings flared out behind her, wide swatches of darkness. "You think I'm an angel?"

Lucifer was about to bark back at her that _of course_ that was what she was. What the hell else could she be when he actually regarded her wings. At first, he'd assumed they were just like his brother's, dark like ebony, but still resonating with the light of the Lord. But even with the standoff between them, with her ragged breaths ringing in his ears, Lucifer took time to really see them.

The shape of them were similar, but the quality was not. The wings had no inner light like his own, did not shine as much as Amendiel's did, or even like the regular angels' would. There was nothing luminescent about them. They were like feathers made of pure shadow, as if light sucked into their void. His eyes trailed lower and he looked toward her primaries, where the long blades of the largest feathers should have been. Even those long ones were more bird-like than anything else, not built like the weapons that all angels had been designed with. After all, the host were warriors first and had been designed as such by Father, down to the multiple uses of their wings. But it was the ends of her wings that confused him the most, and it was rare the devil saw something that after literally billions of years of existence he'd never come across before.

Where the feathers should have tapered off at the ends of her wings, they seemed to almost smudge, to bleed against the reality around her. If her feathers drew in light like the densest black hole, their edges were almost phased out, like blending to smoke or mist at the very bottom by her ankles.

"What are you?" he asked, and then he let his eyes shimmer red. His voice low and defensive. "If my Father didn't send you, then who bloody well did?"

"That's what I'd like to know," the detective replied. "It's what I've always wanted to know. If you could give me a minute to explain instead of putting me on trial, and, Jesus-"

"Wrong deity," Lucifer ground out.

"Fine, just turn the eyes off. That's chilling."

"Oh, your wings are literally sucking in the ambient light in the room and are cloaked in shadows and mist, but I'm the creepy one. Duly noted, that."

"Mommy?"

Lucifer shoved his infernal side away. He had no intention of scaring a child ever, and the urchin had grown on him somewhat. She was tolerable for a child and tended to be more conniving than the average sticky rapscallion. Besides, his eyes even apart from the full devil face could drive grown men to lunacy. He'd no interest in inflicting that on a child, let alone on Trixie.

Both of them turned to watch as the little girl slid the door open. Lucifer-although he should have seen this coming, albeit omniscience was supposedly more his Father's bent-was still gobsmacked to see small, obsidian wings on Trixie's back as well. They didn't absorb the light around her like the detective's did, nor did they smudge into smoke and mist at their ends. Perhaps it was because Trixie was only half whatever the hell the detective was or perhaps because she was still just a child.

He didn't know.

But he was damn well going to suss it out. He was bloody tired of being played, and lied to, and in the dark. He had both his father and Amenadiel for those types of games. Maze too, lately. The one person he thought had his back, his partner (and what a laugh that was), had been lying to him, and she would explain this so help him.

"Mommy?" Trixie called again, the urchin's lip wobbling as she did it. Her focus darted from her mother stood in the corner with her own wings still spread wide to Lucifer. When they landed on him, they went huge with fear. He blinked once but was gratified to see that the world was not reflected back at him in a red haze. She had not seen his true eyes. So, why was the urchin so upset? "Mommy, I heard shouting and…

The detective didn't put her own wings away, but she glared at Lucifer out of the corner of her eye as she strode across the room and knelt down in front of her daughter. "Hey there, monkey, can you go back in your room? It's okay."

Trixie eyed her mother's wings and bit her lip. It was only when the soft fluttering of her own alerted Trixie to their presence. It was then that the spawn started to cry, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. "I didn't mean to, Mommy. I got scared, and they popped out. I know I promised after last time, and I…"

The detective gathered her up in her arms and wrapped her own wings around them both, as if she could cocoon them away from him. His hearing was better than that and though their voices were low and muffled, he could still make out what they were saying:

_Monkey, it's alright. I know you didn't mean it._

_But he saw like Daddy saw, and you said it makes people mad and…_

Lucifer coughed. "Girls, I can still hear you." Oh, bloody hell, since when had an interrogation spiraled into a kumbaya session? Lucifer walked slowly to them both and got down to his knees. It would be hell on the Gucci, after all, children dropped things like peanut butter sandwiches on the floor, didn't they? However, he didn't want to seem anymore threatening than he already must have to Trixie. "It's alright, for now. Your mum and I just needed to talk. Beatrice, look at me."

The detective opened up her wings and let Trixie turned to him, but her arms were still wrapped fiercely around her daughter's waist. "Don't you even think about anything, Lucifer."

"I am not that kind of monster," he replied, tone low. He smiled and focused on Trixie. "Beatrice, I don't know what happened before, but you have very lovely wings. Did you know that?"

"Mommy and grandma say I have to hide them. It's why Daddy left."

Oh, so besides all his questionable knowledge about Malcolm-and it had _not_ escaped Lucifer's notice that at the Dunlear Gala Dan had arrived in his penthouse expecting to find him badly injured-there was yet another reason to hate the Douche. At least something was coming up Lucifer tonight.

His smile broadened, and he tried to throw his charm around her, to extend the same mojo that had always put humans at ease before, but Trixie still shook in her mother's arms. Perfect, of course she'd be immune, just like her mum. Lucifer would have to rely on his own charms, which, to be fair, usually served him well even without supernatural endowment, although he'd never been one for children.

"Beatrice, did you know that I had wings once?"

Her eyes grew even wider, but she still shook in her mother's grasp. "You did? Can I see them?"

Lucifer shook his head and, oddly, for the first time since on that beach almost six years ago, he regretted that he'd had Maze sever them. Sighing, he slipped off his coat and then undid his shirt in sort order. Turning around, realizing what a mistake that could be considering whatever the fuck the detective was and her ability to render him mortal meant that showing his back to a potential enemy was a fool's errand, Lucifer relented still and tried to make things right.

"Do you see the scars on my back?"

"Do they hurt?"

"Not anymore, child. That's where I had my wings."

"Why don't you anymore?"

He turned back around and rebuttoned his Oxford. "Because of something I did to myself, doesn't matter now. But, spawn, I had brilliant wings once, white as snow, but yours are striking too. They're quite beautiful to look at. So, I'll make you a deal, when I'm around, you can have them out if you want. I won't be upset by them." He winked at her and, reaching out, touched her small shoulder. "In fact, I'll probably be jealous of them."

Trixie's eyes were still wide, but they matched the huge smile lighting up her face. "You could be jealous of my wings?"

"I just said they were 'lovely,' didn't I?" Lucifer asked, taking his hand back. He was scared that the detective was half crouched around her daughter in mother grizzly instinct mode. Best not to touch the urchin too long lest he upset her mum. "So, no, Trixie, I'd never think the worse of them."

"But Daddy…"

He winked at that and waggled his eyebrows a bit for her. "I'm assuredly _not_ your father. So, urchin, if you would be so kind as to cuddle back in your bed-wings in or out, dealer's choice-then your mum and I can finish our talk. Does that sound alright?"

"Will you read me a story after?"

The detective seemed to come back to her senses, her instinctual anger waning. "Monkey, I think after Lucifer and I talk, he might want to leave." The "for good" part was left unsaid.

He stood and flicked the dust off his trousers. "I'll be the judge of that. But, yes, retire to your room, and if your mum approves later, I'll tell you any story you like. You know I keep my promises, right?"

"Cause you're the devil, and he does deals."

"How right you are," he replied.

The detective stood then, wings fanning out behind her. Though they commanded the room even as the light seemed to bend and sink into them, Lucifer noticed they were not proportionally as big as his were either. Whatever she was, the wingspan was not as wide as an angel's should have been.

How positively odd.

"See, monkey, it's alright, and I know you did your best. It's okay to be scared sometimes."

Trixie nodded and hugged her mum and then, naturally, darted across the expanse between them and wrapped her arms tightly around Lucifer's middle. He stilled but eventually forced his own natural reaction to children to abate.

Awkwardly, he reached down and patted her shoulder. "Good now, go fetch or sit or rollover."

She chuckled and headed back to her room, her wings still visible, as if she'd been saddled with a large, black rucksack on her back. "I'm not a puppy!"

"Well, I suppose then maybe you're a goose or a duck. Perhaps a big chicken, then urchin. Squawk squawk."

Trixie turned around just long enough to stick her tongue out at him before skipping to her room.

With the door shut, the tension crept back into the air between him and the detective. She stood to her full-still not impressive-height and set her hands on her hips. "Outside, the balcony, now."

Before he could answer, she disappeared by fading fully into smoke only to reappear through the windows and on the balcony of her mother's home.

_Bollocks_.

He'd never seen that one before.

When he walked to greet the detective, her wings were gone, but their shadow felt heavy between them. He resented her for that, even though he had no real right to. Lucifer wasn't even mad that she was some spy from his Father-she couldn't be because he didn't even know what she was-something else had sent her, which was more disturbing. But he wasn't cross with her because of that, more because she was supposed to be the less complicated part of his life. Sure, their relationship and emotional entanglement was nebulous and undefined. It also kept him going to sessions with Linda at least twice a week, sometimes more on rough weeks. But she was the _normal_ one. He'd be dallying with PTA dinners and long hours after the regular workday if he so deigned to filling out police reports. She wasn't supposed to be _other_. No, Chloe Decker was supposed to be the one simple and very human thing in his life.

Though, if he were honest with himself, Lucifer had to have known deep down that couldn't be when she was the only so-called human he'd ever met whom he couldn't draw desire from. Well, until Trixie of course.

But yes, he was mostly furious that she'd hidden this from him, taken the thrill of flirting with normalcy away. The domesticity of it, which, in some weird way had amused him, alien as it was from all his other experiences.

Did she have the same feeling now? She'd seen his eyes at least, she had to believe him too that he was all that he'd ever claimed to be.

"How did you do that?" he asked.

"Don't you know?"

He laughed long and hard, trying to ignore the bitter edge to it as he leaned on the railing beside her. Lucifer desperately wanted to smoke then, but he figured the detective had rules about it. She had bloody rules about everything and was there something about second-hand smoke around children or bad examples or whatever other bollocks? Still, he craved something to do with his hands other than try not to crush the wood beneath them.

"How would I? I don't know what you understand or don't about the preternatural, but we don't all hang out together. There's not a club or a secret handshake. In Hell, there are the demons, and I've dominion over them. When I'm on earth, I avoid my siblings like the plague, even when Amenadiel sticks his nose in everything like a bloody wanker. I don't know about every single thing that bumps or crawls or scurries through the night. I don't holiday up here frequently enough to keep up with it all. I've run afoul of a few demigods in my time, perhaps also the less said about Dream and his siblings, the better."

"Who?"

He snorted. "Too long a story for tonight. However, I do not know everything dreamt up in my own philosophy apparently. And I was always hard on old Will for adding that, found it too high-minded in the final draft."

She narrowed penetrating blue eyes at him. "Uh, long time since high school stuff on sets. Is that _MacBeth?_"

"_Hamlet_, actually, but I suppose close enough."

Her eyes went as wide as her daughter's had been. "You knew that Shakespeare?"

Lucifer's lips twisted up despite himself. "Talented that Will, in and out of the sack. Anyway, no, detective, I haven't seen everything supernatural. Honestly, I've spent most of human history ruling Hell, no rest for the wicked and all that. So, whatever you are, I've never seen anything quite like it."

Her shoulders fell, and she shuddered a little. "I thought…I hoped…you were supposed to have my answers."

"Maybe we can trade. Tell me what little you do know, and I'll tell you what I do, even exhange, yeah?"

She considered him. "A deal with the devil?"

"A meeting of the minds. It was coming close to blows before the urchin arrived, and whilst I don't trust you, I don't want to fight in front of the child. It's poor form, and she is rather scared, isn't she?"

"She has a right to be. It's hard…I…everything's so hard, and I just wanted to know _anything_."

Lucifer wanted to reach out and place a hand on her shoulder, but they were not the same people they'd been to each other an hour ago. They certainly weren't the friends playing heart and soul on the piano or even the partners who'd just exposed a charity scam and a murder. Whatever they said now would determine whether they were enemies or not going forward. He wasn't even sure where it would go.

Instead, he curled his hands back around the balcony railing and looked to the wide expanse of the dark ocean churning below. "Then I shall start."

"You talking first, there's a surprise."

He winked at her, grateful for that much of a familiar rhythm between them. "I assume you know most of the big details about me, now that you believe I'm who I say I am, though the Bible doesn't exactly paint a true or flattering portrait of yours truly. Most of the broad strokes are close enough. Devil, lake of fire, punishes damned souls, yadda yadda. Was an angel, distinctly not now, and me and my Father don't get along. But I would like to know how long you've actually believed me because you clearly didn't at first."

She sighed. "I thought you were a lunatic or milking a persona for your night club for a while, that's true. I should have pushed you away after the first case and then you kept coming back. I suspected things like the strength or the being right behind me when the two paps were going to shoot each other. But then I could shoot you, and I wasn't sure if I were just going through wishful thinking."

"I see, but when were you sure? When did you start manipulating our working relationship to spy on me?"

"The wings. I saw the pictures of the real items that Carmen had on his site but kept stashed away for himself. I _knew_ those were real just from the images, and you wanted them back so badly. That's how I knew. Then a couple weeks later, seeing you lift The Spider like it was nothing clenched it for me."

"I see." He replied, and he couldn't even fault her for that. He'd told her from the moment she'd come to interview him, and he'd never hidden any of his strength. "You didn't think to tell me about you, then?"

"I had to be sure."

"Of what?"

She sighed as the sea air wafted her hair through the breeze. "I don't know. This is all crazy. Somehow, the fact that I'm trying to explain it to the _actual_ Lucifer who is still my often self-aggrandizing manwhore of a partner does not make this easier."

"I'm all ears, though," he replied. "For now, since I at least know you're not some bloody trick of my Father's, I'm willing to hear you out."

"Gee, how generous."

"I'm the first Fallen. I was literally the angel who lit the heavens and created the galaxies because the Almighty ordered me to. There's probably nothing you can say that will sound stranger to me than that."

She shrugged. "My mom sold her soul to a cult years ago to be famous in Hollywood. She probably should have specified the fine print more because I'd say she ended up more well off and infamous for B-roles than Meryl Streep. But she joined the cult before I was born, was pregnant with me when the cops busted it apart. My dad…I guess it was like a Florence Nightengale thing? He fell in love with the person he rescued, and she didn't have anywhere to go. Four months later I came along, and eventually she started getting steady roles. I mean, sure terrible schlock but she became the Vampire Queen and packed them in at conventions. It was what she wanted, more or less. And her soul seemed intact."

"I'm following, I think."

"Guess Mom didn't read whatever contract she signed in blood or who knows what at all because I don't think she actually sold her soul but _mine_. I…" the detective closed her eyes and took a long, shuddering breath. "My wings sprouted when I was six, just like Trixie's. Dad was…he was the most amazing person I've ever met, even now. He got the full story from my mom, and he just kept loving me all the same."

She sighed, and Lucifer, despite everything, reached out to clap a hand over her shoulder to steady her. "You're fortunate. I have found the unconditional love of a father is a rare thing. Seems to mess enough humans up to send them my way, and you know about me."

"I think everyone does," she said, letting out a mirthless laugh. "I did what Mom wanted, got into movies myself. I guess I thought maybe I'd brush up against the cult again that way, find out what demon or whatever I was owed to. Ended up taking my top off, not exactly my finest hour."

"I disagree, best role you ever did."

She snorted. "It was one of about three films I did that weren't made for tv or Disney channel stuff as a kid actress. It's still terrible."

"And then you decided you'd find the cult better as a cop with those resources?"

"Not exactly. Dad died, and I wanted to do something more with my life. I wasn't lying about wanting to contribute to society. But I couldn't…I changed, and I couldn't work in movies anymore."

Lucifer frowned. "Alright, so you're really vampire, and they can't capture your image on film."

"No!" She frowned. "I don't think so. Not like I drink blood or lack a heartbeat or wait, don't make me freak out."

"Don't, detective. I'm pretty sure those aren't real. Never run up on any that weren't just humans on a power trip or raving mad from hallucinogens."

"Good to know," she said, her voice wavering.

He squeezed her shoulder a little tighter. "Go on."

The detective stood up fully and he watched, transfixed again, as her wings flickered into reality behind her. They were even darker on the deck, as if they sucked in moonlight too. The edges near her ankles, the lowest feathers, were as smoky and amorphous as ever, and she was such a sight-such power to behold.

"They changed." She ruffled her wings behind her as if he could be confused. "They come out at night. I mean, maybe by three a.m., I can't keep them in. Some movies and shows…night shoots, all night, whatever it takes to make the product on time and on budget, you know? As long as I could do first or second shift at the precinct, then they weren't a problem. So, everything after _Hot Tub High School_ and my dad died, it just made sense to change careers."

"And you can bloody teleport?"

"Not exactly. It's more, wherever there's a shadow I can…I dunno…mist through it? That's how I think of it. I could fly if I wanted, but this is easier, more discreet. Trixie's too little to travel by shadows. I couldn't even do it till I was about twenty-one."

Lucifer frowned, considering the mountains of information he'd had dumped on him. None of it was like anything he'd ever heard, but he hardly got the latest news in Hell. "And the Douche, he knows?"

The detective laughed shrilly and leaned back on the railing, this time the breeze ruffled her long, blonde hair as well as her feathers. Lucifer had many sins he loved. Lust of course, and he was easily driven to wrath. Linda's wall could attest to that, but pride had always been chief among them. He'd found his wings the most beautiful in Heaven once upon a time, when he cared for them. And, outside of his brother, Michael's, they truly were. One of only two pairs of angel wings as white and pure (ironic that now) as the clouds around them. But the detective's wings were ethereally lovely, as if she were fashioned out of the night itself.

For all he bloody well knew, she had been.

"Dan was a weakness."

"Oh, I'll say. You can do so much better, Detective." He didn't leer at her, not like the first few weeks of their partnership.

It was merely a statement of fact. She was extraordinary even when he'd thought she was only a human. Strong despite the corrupt bastards around her who tried to keep her down after that Palmetto claptrap, surprisingly soft when she let her vulnerable side show. And one hell of a shot. The Douche had never been worthy of even the human side of her, and he certainly couldn't hope to compete with the what? Maybe demi-god she actually was.

"It was nice at first. Normal. I wanted that, and then I got pregnant cause I got careless, and Dan wanted to make it right. He's from Texas and Catholic on top of that, very old-fashioned. I said yes, and then worked hard to hide things. Faked having a terrible snoring condition so that I could have a separate bedroom for when…" She flexed her wings as if it weren't evident for them both. "…I hoped…it was so dumb, but I hoped that Trixie wouldn't be like me. Then she was, and she couldn't control it cause we can't when we're scared, not really, and she was _just six_." 

Lucifer felt his own eyes go scarlet, and he took deep breaths to keep his face from shifting in his ire too. "I had hoped the urchin was like most children and just assumed the fighting was her fault."

"Palmetto had already happened by then. It's only part of why we split, but Dan isn't like my dad was. He couldn't…he does try with visitation. It is joint custody, and he's learning, but I think on an everyday basis it was too much for him."

Lucifer's voice was low and laced with menace. "I've no interest in children, never have, but I have always bloody well believed that a good father-if there is such a thing-should love their offspring unconditionally. They made them so then why be upset with something you claimed you wanted?"

The detective frowned at him, her look so familiar, like when she was ferreting out pieces of information on a case. "I know you and your dad…"

"God."

"So weird."

"No less true."

"I know he and you obviously, famously, whole religious system is based on it, didn't get along. But Dan is _trying_. I didn't even expect when he figured it all out that he'd want to do as much as he does for her sake. It's something, Lucifer, and I have to hold onto that."

"I suppose. I don't understand humans much, and human parents confuse me. You want your children, sometimes. It's what I've been led to understand, especially in the day and age of birth control. How different things have gone over the centuries." He sighed and his fingers tensed on the rail. He wanted a cigarette terribly. "My Father created us for his purposes. We were his soldiers, his army, and his obedient tools to bring forth creation as he saw fit. Never allowed to deviate, to question, or to have wants of our own. It is very different than I expect how Trixie came to be."

The detective eased close to him and nudged his shoulder with her own. "What a fucked up pair we make."

"Speak for yourself," he said, winking. "I no longer resemble any fowl."

"Oh, you know you miss it."

He did, but he did not miss a direct line to his Father or a quick way back to Hell. Yes, he missed flight, something he would sneak and do where he could on his holidays when they were long enough, and he found somewhere secluded. It was impossible to do much in Hell outside of what was required to ascend to his throne. The ash choked the air too thickly down there. But he did not miss _them_, not if they tied him to his Father in perpetuity.

"Some sacrifices are worth it for free will."

"Maybe," she said, her tone unconvinced. "But Dan never said anything about me. He works with me, and sometimes covers for things where he can if I slip. He's a good person, and he does love Trixie…I…just maybe not the weird parts completely yet. But he is learning." She sighed. "Christ, he's only human."

"A fault that no one in this lovely home currently shares. And, I assure you, detective, you and the urchin are better off for it."

"Doesn't feel like it. My whole life is just this weird, twisted joke."

"I can relate on that point too, but we're better, detective. That should be some cold comfort."

She glared at him angrily, and her blue eyes grew black as obsidian. Lucifer didn't even know if the detective…if Chloe had realized what she'd done. "It's none at all. I only exist because of some crazy cult I can't even find. I thought…this is rich, at first I thought maybe you'd had a hand in me."

Lucifer coughed, eyes bugging out widely at her. "Beg your pardon? You…I was your what here, detective? You should be aware that_ you're _the one who came to my penthouse and wanted to have sex. You couldn't have possibly thought…"

"No, of course not!" She hissed. "By then, you'd hit on me so many times, I figured that it had be some other demon or I don't know what that the cult was worshipping. Mom never said it was a Satanist thing, just a Pagan cult of some kind. Honestly, I think she was stoned a lot then. At first, you were just nuts. Then, you were definitely Satan and possibly why I existed, and finally, maybe this is a little speciesist of me, but I figured if you're such a big supernatural muckity muck that then you'd at least know _what_ I am."

He let out a long breath and calmed, his eyes cooling down the same ways hers had beside him. Minus her wings-a large exception-no one would have known they were anything other than two work partners discussing things after hours.

"Good, I should hope not about the thinking I was your father or Dad knows what," he scoffed. "I have never had a single cult. I have no interest in them, and I have even less in children. Detest the little things. Trixie is manageable on most days, but I certainly am not seeding myself to any desperate starlet in the Valley. I do favors for much less than that, and, frankly, a trade like that is nothing _but_ coercion." He narrowed his eyes at her. "It is the last thing I'm interested in."

"I know that now," she replied. "I just…you've never seen anything like me?"

He sighed, the anger at her insinuations and the revulsion at any chance that she assumed _that_ had been true now drained from him. Turning to her, he reached out and grazed his fingers softly over her cheek. "Detective…_Chloe_, I have lived a very long time, but I have never met anyone like you. I've never seen wings like yours. I can tell you they are neither demonic nor angelic, but, alas, that leaves many avenues to still track down that I am less familiar with. Studying was never my thing, and we have no books in Hell." He shrugged. "No books, no food, no alcohol, and no music. It's ruddy boring and now you know why I crave vacation so readily."

She took in a sharp, shuddering breath. The detective licked her lips, and he was so close. She wasn't inebriated now, and there were no secrets left between him as far as he knew. It would be so easy to just lean in a little closer and taste her. Bending lower, Lucifer brought his face to hers and stroked her cheek with one hand, with the other, he reached out for the top arch of her nearest wing. It was just so painfully beautiful, and he wanted to feel it.

To know_ all of her_.

The second his fingers graced the edges of her feathers though, he hissed. A sharp burn bit into his fingers, reminding him more than a bit of his landing in hell and the fire that singed him to nothing. Cursing, Lucifer jumped back and glanced toward his fingertips. He was used to being vulnerable around her, but the welts erupting over the fingers of his left hand were new.

Unprecedented.

The moment broken, the detective opened her eyes and regarded him. "Lucifer…did I do something wrong?"

He rebounded as quickly as he could and offered her a softer truth. "I'll recover."

Lucifer moved to shove his hand in his trouser pocket, but the detective was quick. She arched her shoulders and banished her wings away. Even as she did that, she reached out and took his injured hand in hers. The welts had risen now, and the skin was reddened and scaly, like a human with poison oak. That was a fun motif in Hell, not as fun when it was affecting him.

"I…I did that?"

"I suppose I might have a bit of an allergy to you," he said, desperately trying to play off her growing fears with humor.

She started to pace before him, and her hair flared out in the wind like a golden mane. "I hurt the devil." 

"Detective…Chloe!" he called, trying to stop her from pacing and to snap some sense into her as well. "It's really alright. I'm sure it'll be fine once I'm out of range of you." 

"Range?"

"I…erm, yes. That's why I've been avoiding you of late. I was being literal when I said you make me vulnerable. No one else…had they shot me would have been able to pierce my skin like that. I didn't anticipate that the effect would be rooted to something in you that was quite so mystical."

"Like my wings?" she croaked, even as she stopped to look at him, her eyes stricken.

"I don't know. Neither of us know much of anything." He held up his hands. "I'm alright. Believe me, I've had worse. We'll cover how bad the burns from landing in Hell were some other time, but this is more a tickle than anything else."

She shook her head. "Like from a feather?"

"No," he reached out and steadied her shoulder, glad she let him. "Detective, I will be alright. I'm a former archangel, and I've fought every demon of any note in Hell to get to the top of the heap. I'll recover from a bit of a skin rash."

It seemed that was all the detective could take that night; Lucifer could agree almost. Her knees seemed to give out from under her, and she sank to the floor of the deck. He started over to her, but she held up her hands. "No, I don't want to hurt you anymore."

"You wouldn't, but I understand. I…shall I leave?"

"No, but just…I've never asked before for a favor from you."

Lucifer nodded. "Anything and, before you ask, it doesn't cost anyone's soul. That's a vicious Vatican-inspired rumor. I just like even swaps."

"I don't have a soul to give," she hiccupped, and he'd never seen the detective like this, this undone.

She'd been drunk and wounded before in front of him. She'd even admitted about her own emotional vulnerability around him. He'd seen her unnerved by her run in with the paparazzi long ago and the ghost of it in her life, but he'd never seen her so utterly broken. He would have done anything she asked of him for free, and that should bother him more than it did, that he'd grown to care for someone as deeply as he had in so few months, especially since it was no more than a blink in his interminable life.

Lucifer knelt down beside her, as he had earlier with Trixie. He nodded and spoke low and kindly with her, as he had the fateful night, he'd tried to set the dear, late Delilah on the straight and narrow. "You don't know that for sure."

"I don't know anything."

"Well, we both know you're neither a demon nor an angel. That eliminates a good chunk of potentially winged things out there," he replied, not unkindly. "Now, Chloe Decker, I know this doesn't work on you, but for tradition's sake, what is it that you desire?"

She gulped up at him, her eyes so wide and wounded. "I can hurt the devil."

"It's not even a flesh wound," he corrected.

"I was created by a cult, and I can travel through shadow as easily as Michael Phelps swims, and Lucifer Morningstar has no clue what I am, but my feathers can hurt him."

He nodded and offered her a small smile. "That's all true, detective, as far as I can tell. I suppose that's as good a summation of the facts of the case as any."

"Please, I want to know what I am…_what _Trixie is too. Can you help me figure that out?"

Lucifer nodded and crooked an elbow toward her. "Your wings are put away, I'm sure you're no danger to me now. Let me help you up."

She did as he asked and shook against his arm. Hesitantly, he reached out and stroked her hair back from her pale face. "But you'll help me?"

"I would do that no matter what, Chloe. I promise you that we will find out exactly what kind of deal your mother made, and," he added, flashing his eyes at her. "Should I find the terms on you or the offspring are disagreeable, I will renegotiate the terms personally." 

She let out a slow, shaky breath as he led her to her armchair inside of the house. "What do you get in return? I…would you sleep with me after?"

"Only if you'd like," he said, his voice a low rumble. He couldn't resist a good opening like that. "No, we'll figure out the terms, but no soul and nothing from your body. Detective, I don't know what foolish thing Penelope did long ago, but I _promise_ you, I will make it right, and I'm a devil of my word."

She sat in the chair heavily and drew her knees up to her chest, shivering. "I can hurt the devil."

"So, can Mazikeen; depending on her mood, she seems to revel in it."

"I'm something worse than a demon."

"Doubt that but congrats, you're probably something better and more interesting than an angel; you should be relieved. Heaven's terribly boring." Lucifer crouched beside her chair and stroked her shoulder again. "It's alright. I'm on the case, and you might have noticed but I've learned quite a bit about solving crimes and mysteries by now. I've had a great teacher."

She sighed and looked at Trixie's door. "What if it's really bad?"

"Chloe," he responded, saying her voice as if it were a loving caress. Maybe it was. "I have seen you at your best and at your drunk, stumbling worst, and if there's anything I'm sure of, it's that you being something evil or wrong is flatly impossible. You could never be anything short of extraordinary." Daring for more, he leaned forward and kissed her temple gently. "Now, get some rest. I'll wake you at sunrise so you can get cleaned up before the urchin spots you out here. I'll even make brekkie; anything you'd prefer? Ooh, do you have pancake batter?"

She frowned at him, some of the shock wearing from her. "It's a school morning. That's not really a balanced breakfast."

"Well, you're hardly fun, are you?"

"Lucifer," she chided. Then, she bit her lip and eyed the closed door of her daughter's room. "Maybe after tonight an exception is okay, just this once." She looked up at him and smiled, it was slight, and her eyes were still too shiny, but it was a start. "You really are a full-service devil, aren't you?"

He stood and gave her a courtly bow. "No, my dear detective, I'm a full-service _partner_. Now, get some rest. We've a mystery ahead of us."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

He didn't sleep. To be fair, Lucifer didn't need it as often as a human would. Celestials did most of what humans did, after all the monkeys, as his most annoying sister, Remiel, had called them had to get their design from somewhere. However, sleep while a necessity was something Lucifer could go without for a week or so if he needed it. A few spectacular Bacchanalian benders over his vacations to earth had proven that to him. Besides, after the detective had passed out, he'd taken her carefully up the stairs to her room. It was probably a sign of how confusing and bizarre the whole evening had been that he didn't even smirk to himself about gaining (not quite invited) entrance to the detective's room. But whatever she was aside, falling asleep in an armchair wasn't going to be good for her, and he needed her actually rested and focused so they could sort through their mound of problems together.

His cult and hers.

Although, in his case, he just needed to find the pretender to the throne and which cultist had gone from playing at being bad and "in the service of the devil" to actually thinking for an instant-just one bloody instant-that Lucifer would ever demand killing in his name. He never demanded anything in his name. It was part of the reason he'd invented favors. Just asking for things felt too much like orders, like _Him_, but if there was some kind of _quid pro quo_ involved then it was easy to see the arrangement was mutually desired and beneficial to both sides. In the detective's case, well, he wasn't familiar with most paranormal entities. They left him alone even with his longest holiday on record and, in turn, if it wasn't Amenadiel coming round to screw up his life or harangue him, then Lucifer didn't seek anything _other_ out. Where to start for Penelope Decker's cult would be complicated and, although he suspected that the detective would loathe the suggestion, Lucifer figured the best place to start would be grilling the so-called Vampire Queen, herself, about the cult she'd hooked up with.

Dear Dad would that be an awkward arrangement.

But he'd needed the detective at full focus. He was good at the random pieces of information that clicked together with everything else and, of course, the desire mojo as she so flippantly called it. However, for the legwork and the established patterns, to have a starting point, they both needed the detective thinking sharply and clearly. So, hours ago, he'd deposited the detective in her bed, and then slipped silently back out to the first floor balcony.

The stars never shone in Los Angeles, even this far out toward the beach paid for with Penelope's ill-gotten gains, there were so few that glittered due to light pollution. It was the same back on his own veranda at Lux, but when he was feeling contemplative, Lucifer would squint up at the sky and force the limits of his infernal vision to see all that he could of his creations. Despite everything, the whole sordid eons of history between him and heaven, he couldn't look on them even now with anything short of pride.

And peace.

In a strange way. He'd never heard a human complain about them, frankly only heard them praised and admired and used, as strange and amusing as he found astrology. It felt like the only good thing he'd ever really done, at least the only one that lasted.

After six thousand years, the jury was still out on breaking Father's toy garden and letting the humans actually take advantage of the free will they'd been created with. On days when the alcohol flowed freely at Lux and he had several men and women waiting for him in his bed, Lucifer was certain that tempting Eve had been a great idea. He'd been Fallen by then after all, no need to be alone in that. However, on too-hot mornings with the sun in his eye and the harsh stench of a fresh corpse before him and his partner, Lucifer wasn't as sure. After all, free will and the ability to exercise it and the knowledge to know how were a complicated puzzle. Not every choice was a good one.

And many ended up with bodies in their wake.

Once the sun started to come up, the sky lightening in shades of orange, faint purple, and gold, Lucifer started in on his promise. With a bit of wheedling, after all, he had clearance to make the detective and her spawn breakfast, and he intended to do just that. He was halfway through setting out all the ingredients on the kitchen table when small feet padded up next to him.

He turned as he set the milk and bowls out on the table to finish up his collection of ingredients. Trixie stared up at him, her brown eyes wide and curious. She wasn't speaking yet, a rarity for her, and Lucifer wasn't sure if that was because all human children were subdued after waking up (damned if he knew) or if she were still nervous around him because of how much they knew about each other.

Lucifer bent lower at his waist so that he could peer more closely at her. "Offspring, what are you doing up?"

She rubbed at her eye and struggled into a chair. "I heard you, and I'm hungry."

He frowned, considering the clock over the stove. It was only six-thirty. Definitely a time he was rarely awake, unless he'd failed to sleep the night before. Did human children catch the school bus by now? Did they come with little instruction manuals? That would be much more convenient if they did.

"Is this when you usually eat?"

She shook her head. "Mom gets me up at seven and then we have eggs or cereal. Then she drops me off at school 'cause we start at eight. It's still pretty early." Her gaze fell on the flour and sugar. "What are you making?"

"Pancakes."

She yipped and Lucifer flinched. Leaning back to her, he cut his eyes first to the stairwell and then to her. "Shh, your mother is still sleeping. If you stay quiet, urchin, I'll let you assist me. Now, wash your hands first."

"They're clean."

"Impossible, I'm sure. Now, get all cleaned up and I'll let you help me crack the eggs and stir. Would you like that?" Her face lit up but he brought one, long finger to press against her lips. "No squealing. Your mum needs her sleep."

Trixie complied and was scrubbed up and back in her chair by the mixing bowls with impressive speed. "Cool. So, you can cook?"

"You ask that like I shouldn't be able to." He replied, starting on his ministrations. Lucifer decided the better part of valor was to crack the eggs himself but once they were in the bowl, he slid it and the whisk to the child so that she could mix egg whites and yolks together. "I can cook quite well, been around a long time."

"But you're the devil."

He shrugged and grinned back at her. "Never hid that fact, spawn, just glad you and your mum actually believe me now. Makes things easier."

"Can you cook in Hell?"

"No, of course not," he replied as he started sifting the flour to mix in with the baking powder. "It wouldn't be Hell if there were delights like food and good drink and music that didn't leave you screaming. I swear this Bieber chap…"

"I like Justin Bieber!"

Lucifer groaned. "Figures that you would. I have a theory some human children are really just escaped hellspawn in disguise."

Trixie's expression dimmed even as she kept whisking the eggs with determination. "But I'm not." 

"A hellspawn? Probably not but if you insist on playing any of that Bieber nonsense while I'm around, I'll reconsider my verdict."

Trixie bit her lower lip and looked up at him with such large, limpid eyes. Probably the only decent thing she'd ever inherit from Detective Douche. On her father, their expression made him seem not so much addled as gullible. On the spawn, it made Trixie appear innocent and far too trusting. "No, I mean a human. Unless other kids have wings and no one told me."

"No, of course not, urchin," Lucifer replied adding sugar and then, okay, much more sugar to the dry mix. "Humans should be so lucky." Trixie didn't answer, which even he knew was rare for her, little as he'd been exposed to her so far. He finished with the dry mix and pushed the bowl towards her. Offering her his best smile, Lucifer nodded toward the child. "You can help add the eggs to this and I'll measure out the milk-it can be tricky and you don't want it to be a mushy mixture-reason pancakes aren't liquid, you know?"

Trixie nodded sedately and helped ease the eggs into the bowl below. "They're weird, right?"

"Eggs? They have their uses. Why my father made their consistency like that of snot, I'll never know…"

Trixie giggled at that even as the rest fell into the biggest mixing bowl. "No! I mean, eggs are kind of weird."

"Definitely." 

"But my wings, I mean. They're not weird."

Lucifer wasn't sure how to explain that. He never lied, and it was somewhat disconcerting to see the detective's wings, the ones that seemed to soak up light, because he'd honestly never encountered anything infernal or celestial like that. Yet. He had some acquaintances he could call on, if he was desperate enough to try and reach out to Dream or Delirium or the rest, but he preferred to track down his own ideas first. Again, maybe a siren? Maybe a demigoddess? He wasn't sure, but while the wings were beautiful, there was something so utterly _other_ about them that they left the devil confused.

Not necessarily the best sign, no.

So he offered the urchin what truth he could. After all, he was a master at skating around its edges. "They're like your mother's."

"Yeah, they're not as big yet."

Among other things. "And you think your mother's are pretty, and you like them, right?"

She frowned, her brows drawn comically tight. "Of course, they're pretty and soft and when I have a nightmare, Mommy wraps them around me and I feel safe."

Lucifer sighed and offered a small, half-smile. That he understood. The Goddess was not…she was a being of pure light. There was literally no way to comfort her children with wings, none to be had there. However, he had done that more than once for Rae-Rae, held her close when she'd been left crying after Michael and Gabriel ganged up on her. Interesting that whatever the fuck the detective was that she had that instinct too.

Lucifer would distinctly not think about birds and their habits because he was better than that.

"Then, you know the wings are a wonderful thing. If you like your Mum's, then you must like your own."

Trixie pushed the bowl back his way and he went to work, humming to himself a little as he poured out the milk into a mixing cup in preparation for adding it to the batter. "I don't know."

"I notice," he started as he added the milk to the mix. "that you don't have them out in the morning. Completely understandable, I tended not to sleep with mine out either. Get a sight be too warm."

She frowned at him even as he bumbled around the various cupboards until he found the jackpot with the plug-in skillet. _Perfect_. "Why did you get rid of your wings? Can I get rid of mine?"

He stopped then and turned around so fast that Trixie squeaked in her seat and almost fell from it. Lucifer reached out to her and set his hands on her shoulders. "I apologize; I didn't mean to move so fast or to startle you. You startled me first, urchin. You shouldn't speak like that."

"Like?"

"My wings aren't like yours. Well, they weren't."

"Cause they were white?"

"No, because I was an angel a very, very long time ago, and now I am _not_."

She nodded. "I know. Sometimes, I go to church with my abuela, and I know that you used to be an angel." She frowned. "Does that mean you really have horns and a tail."

Lucifer rolled his eyes. "I assuredly do not. That's all useless slander." If she asked about red skin, however… "The point is, I got rid of my wings because my father could use them against me, force me to return back to Hell even though I'm retired now. Earth's my home, and I don't intend to go back. My wings were like a leash."

Trixie sighed. "Okay, so you don't have wings anymore because you and your dad were fighting."

"We are always fighting, urchin. The Bible isn't actually wrong on that part."

"Okay," she said, as he turned away and back to heating up the griddle. "But if Daddy is mad at me because of mine, maybe I could cut mine off too?"

Lucifer cursed under his breath, something florid and wrathful in Lillim. He turned back to Trixie and set his hand, palm flat, against her tiny back. "Your father is a douche."

"What's that?"

"Ask your mother later," he replied. "Your wings and your mother's wings are extraordinary, unlike anything even I've seen in many, many years, Beatrice. They're a gift," he hedged a bit, hoping that whatever entity had blessed the Penelope's cult was at best a wild card or a trickster. "If Detective Douche doesn't want to deal with that, then it's squarely his problem and not yours."

"But you cut yours off-"

He sighed and rubbed her back. Now that he was looking for it, he could feel the thin yet sturdy coil of tendon and bone hidden there too. "They tethered me to Hell and to a job I hate. Yours don't do that." He knelt down low so he could see her eye to eye. "In fact, and you know this must be true because I don't lie…"

"Because you're the devil."

He nodded. "My deals are ironclad but transparent, and I never lie. I have found that the truth is harder for humans to hear anyway. The lies…they offer comfort and I wasn't in that business before, was I?" 

"I don't know understand."

"I mean that I'm being honest with you now, child, and some days, I miss my wings very much. Flying is a wonderful thing. I just wish mine hadn't come at a high price. Don't hate yours. In fact," he said, standing up and ladling out the first bit of batter onto the hotplate. "you should let them out. I'm more than happy for you to do so. I'll try not to be too envious." He winked at that last part.

"I dunno…Mom and grandma say…"

Lucifer forced himself to keep the ire and the red streak from his eyes. "Penelope has her own role in all of this, and your mum is asleep right now. Besides, I've already seen them. Urchin, you don't have to, and I know it's not a bloody show and tell, but I assumed that since you feel you can't have them out anywhere but here, that then you'd feel better just being able to be open with me about them. It's fine either way."

"Daddy…"

"Is a douche; we definitely established that," Lucifer replied. He flipped the first couple pancakes as they started to solidify on the burner. "What do you want?"

"Well, my back is really itchy."

He smiled as he got out a couple of large plates to set the pancakes on once they were ready. "They can be like that, as if they need to be out. Feel free to be however you'd like with me, Beatrice. Believe me, the devil is last person on any plane to judge someone, especially for feeling odd."

Trixie rolled her little shoulders and her wings spread wide behind her. They were so impossibly small, considering. There had never been child celestials. He and his siblings had been young but had come forth fully formed, so he'd never seen child-sized wings on any being. Add in the fact that both her and her mother's were slimmer and less broad than angel wings, and the sight was oddly adorable.

You know, if he cared about children, which he didn't. Trixie was just more tolerable than most, even though she was also very loud and talked a lot. Overall, she was fine.

But the wings were somehow just a welcome sight. Maybe an equalizer between them; he wasn't sure.

"You don't have anything different?" Trixie asked, fluttering her wings behind her. "I know you cut your wings off, and you said you don't have a tail or horns like on _South Park_." 

"You're seven."

"I know the Hulu password."

He smirked, impressed by that. "Do you now?"

"I know all about using the internet. Did you know my mom did this movie when she was a teenager and…"

He chuckled even as he moved some finished pancakes to the plates and poured out more batter on the griddle. "Oh, I'm well aware of that one, urchin."

"She threw up cake in a guy's hair! It was awesome."

Lucifer smirked. "Not actually my favorite part of that indelible piece of cinema."

"You talk funny."

"I try," he said, busying himself with cooking.

Trixie fluttered her wings a bit, kicking up a woefully tiny breeze. Quite a fledgling indeed. "But you don't have anything different too? Stuff that scares people?"

"Do your wings scare people?"

"I dunno. You're only the fourth person to see them. Mommy and grandma weren't scared cause they knew about Mom's. Dad was really scared when they popped out the first time. He and mommy fought all night, and then he went to a hotel and…"

Dad help him. No, wait, he wasn't going to technically pray even now, but holy hell, don't let the spawn start crying. He was retired, but he was still Satan, and he had fuck all idea how to calm a (mostly) human child who'd started bawling.

He offered her a patient smile-hoping his panic wasn't showing-and slid the first finished plate of pancakes to her. "Your father is, ahem-"

"A douche."

"Exactly, child. Your wings are very lovely, and I wouldn't lie about that."

"But do you scare people too?"

"Your father's an idiot," Lucifer grumbled. "But I can look different, yes. More devilish if I so chose," he glanced to the doodles on her door. Trixie's renditions of his devil form all included the blasted horns. He should be lucky there were no cloven hooves as well. If he ever found out who started that damn goat rumor, Lucifer would flay that bastard alive. Slowly. "But there are no horns. Sorry to disappoint."

Her wings flared out behind her even as her smile grew wide and mischievous. "Can I see?"

Lucifer's back stiffened even as he forced his focus to cooking. "No, Beatrice, you cannot."

"I showed you my wings!"

"And I showed you my scars, and that's more than most mortals ever see deliberately, believe me." He didn't cover them but he did try to avoid making them a focus of anything he did in bed. The devil was not shy about his body-why would he be-but he did prefer the lights off for certain things, just to minimize the chance a lover would ask about the scars across his back. Most never mentioned it, too interested in the pleasure and promised fulfillment of the evening to risk rocking the boat. The few who asked or tried to touch, soon enough found themselves thrown out on their asses with clothes forfeit. "You can never see the other things I can do…what the devil side looks like."

Trixie really wasn't a normal human child. He should have figured the detective's secret out faster just from spawn exposure. It was one thing that the detective was immune to his powers, it was quite another to find a human child who seemed so utterly unfazed by the infernal. The way Mazikeen told her, the urchin even liked Hell's top torturer!

She pouted at him, lips pushed far out, even as she crossed her arms over her chest. "That doesn't seem fair."

Lucifer sighed and focused instead on finishing off the pancakes for the detective. It was getting toward seven, and he'd need to wake her up soon so that Trixie could start her day proper and the two of them could focus on work and on tracking down the two cults plaguing them.

"It's not!" Trixie said again, this time her words distorted around a mouthful of sugary goodness.

"Life is far from fair, urchin, and I'm an expert on that." He finished with all the detective's breakfast. He'd lost his appetite, and, besides, preferred a kip of alcohol to start his day anyway. As he turned off the griddle and set the detective's plate aside, he offered Trixie a small smile. "It scares people, Beatrice. The way I can look…it makes grown men scream and cry. I don't doubt it would be terrible for you to see, so don't ask again. It's not a pretty sight, not like your wings."

"I can handle it."

"I'm sure you think you do. Humans cannot, but I admit you're the first to beg to see," he added.

"I'm not scared of anything!"

"You're seven; I'm sure you're scared of the monster in your closet."

"Is there one?"

"How the bloody hell should I know? I don't have every scary monster on speed dial. That would be frightfully dull."

Trixie frowned. "One day, though, you could show me."

"No."

"I'm not scared of you."

Lucifer should not be feeling this. He didn't understand children, didn't care for them. And while he had humans he'd developed affection for, usually his staff, and now the detective (well he'd thought she was just human till now), he never had cared much what humans thought of him. Why should it matter? He was the first Fallen and so much more important than what mere humans thought. Surely. And yet, it warmed him in a way he couldn't explain to see such a tiny child declare that he couldn't scare her.

It wasn't true, of course. If she ever saw his red eyes and scarred, burned true face, Trixie Espinoza would scream and cry at best, perhaps never recover her sanity at worst. That wouldn't do, but it was oddly sweet she was trying to insist that he couldn't bother her.

"You say that now, urchin, but I bet you say that to get your mum to show you scary movies."

"I did once. I wanted to see _A Nightmare on Elm Street_, you know? It has the guy with the knife hands."

"I'm aware." Distinctly not one of his favorite horror films. It was too…it just hit too close to the bone. "Did it work, urchin?"

"Yeah, but only cause I was five and told Daddy while Mommy was out shopping that she'd said yes so he had to do it. Dad let me watch it but then I had nightmares for a week and Mommy was super mad."

Lucifer grinned. He did admire the spawn's tenacity and ability even at a young age to manipulate others. She was impressive in that way. "Then, that's my point made, spawn. You only think you can handle all that I am. I promise you this handsome face is much more pleasant. Besides, the way I can look…it's a punishment from my father. Your wings are just who you are, who you were born, and they're gorgeous." 

She fluttered them and he walked around to get a better look at them in the light of day. Curious, considering Trixie was only half human and her wings didn't smudge to smoke at the ends like the detective's did, Lucifer reached out and touched them. There was no burning in his hands, no pain at all. Pulling his palm back, Lucifer checked to see that the skin of his right hand was unblemished.

_Interesting_.

He reached back and touched the high arch of her right wing. "Is this alright?"

"It tickles!"

"I bet." It was soft feathers, basically still mostly down, and Trixie was a far time off from being able to use them as they and their feathers were still growing in.

Lucifer looked over them and spied the collection of pin feathers spreading out from between her shoulder blades. Most were still growing, barely quills, but a few of the pin feathers hadn't quite developed, had clearly died, and were stuck among the growing ones like straw. It was, to be honest, a bit of a mess back there.

"Trixie?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Has your mother ever helped you preen your feathers?" 

"What's that?"

"Oh, dearie me. You said you had the internet."

"Duh. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Did you never look up on a video site how bird wings work? Does your mother not preen hers?"

"I don't know what that word means."

Lucifer swore again in Lillim. "Have you ever had your feathers straightened out or cleaned?"

"Why would I? The wings only come out on accident."

He sighed and pulled up a chair to sit next to her. "Do you back and shoulders itch a lot?"

"Yup."

"That's the dead or out of order feathers, child. You need to…oh, your mother has never once dealt with her own feathers?"

"No? I don't think so?"

Lucifer shivered in empathy. Thirty years with feathers out of alignment or dead pin feathers still clogging up the rest of the wing would be its own type of torture. How could the detective not even have known? Even in Hell, he'd begged Mazikeen for help with his. It was futile as eventually the ash would find a way to bury itself in his feathers when he ascended to or came down from his throne, but without any preening at all, they'd have been an itchy, unbearable mess.

"May I? I'll be careful, but you have a few dead shafts that need to come out. Your down, um, baby feathers are most of what's in now, which makes sense. But let me help you. It will be far less itchy, I promise."

"Okay, I trust you."

He stilled with his hand part way to her shoulders. "What?"

"Duh, you had wings and you know how they work. I trust you, Lucifer."

How odd. Outside of Mazikeen's vow and pretty promises from a few younger siblings that had turned out to be only lies after the Rebellion, no one had ever said that to him before. It was another one of those odd things, those few simple words from a half-human child that shouldn't have warmed his chest but somehow did anyway.

"I…will endeavor to do my best, urchin. Now, let me straighten these feathers for you, shan't be a moment."

So, while Lucifer wasn't exactly sure how he got from playing helpful house guest, preparing sugary-laden treats for the urchin and the detective in a sunny beach house to giving Trixie Espinoza preening advice. Oh, no one should get him wrong. His interminable life had been nothing but bizarre, depending on whose perspective one took, but it usually didn't vacillate between almost mind-numbingly boring and human one moment to worrying about someone else's loose pin feathers the very next.

Trixie sighed and her shoulders slunk down, loose-limbed as he rolled his fingers delicately over her pin feathers and picked out the small, straw-like clumps and occasional bits of not dandruff that had settled among them. He'd done this so many times for Azrael, but when the universe had been new, he'd also done this back and forth not just with his twin but with Amenadiel. Back before his eldest sibling had been an utter smug, self-serving bastard. While he'd been able to teach Mazikeen the premise behind it, enough to rid his feathers of ash, she was a demon and had never learned to do it like an art, to be more than functional with it.

Preening had always been a way to bond with siblings, to feel close to them, perhaps analogous to when human girls did each others' hair or, a bit less charitably, like cats grooming each other. Familial touch, safety.

He envied Trixie a bit for being able to have this, such as it was, because it had been so very long since his siblings…no, best not to think of that. They were long gone to him, every last one of them, and that wasn't going to change. Not now and not a hundred thousand years from now. It never had before.

When he was done taking out any dead feathers from the collection, he worked his hands over the expanse of the wings. Preening hers wasn't hard, not the challenge of Michael's so very long ago. Her wings were small for one, for another down feathers didn't need to be laid in alignment with each other. But, still, he was hopeful as he finally made his way toward the ends of her wings, down by her hips, that they were feeling better and would no longer itch.

Even if he couldn't touch the detective's-and it did worry him that they could hurt him since only something infernal or celestial was supposed to do that-he'd have to teach Trixie how to do this to help her mother. Three decades of tangled feathers and dead pin feathers stuck in her wings? Dad, the detective must just itch terribly all of the time.

"Does that feel better, urchin?"

She nodded. "Can you keep playing with them?"

"_Preening_," he corrected. "They need cleaned. It keeps them shiny and from hurting. When you're big enough and have the adult feathers, it'll how they'll be kept straight so you can fly. This is very important. I'm terribly sorry neither you nor your mum understood that."

"Are you?"

He stilled. Lucifer usually got the jump on others. It was the advantage of being the devil. There were few mortals he couldn't sneak up on and, in turn, no one save for Maze who could get the drop on him. He'd been too distracted tending to the urchin this morning to notice her mother coming down the stairs.

With a bit of effort, Trixie forced her wings away. It took one at a time, and the girl had to bite her lower lip and concentrate hard to make the slightly sluggish right wing finally disappear. Very slow, and Lucifer got the feeling she had them out so rarely, that she didn't really understand how to control or access them yet either.

She hopped out of her chair and stared up at the detective with big, wide eyes. "Mommy! We made pancakes."

Lucifer turned too to take in the detective. She was wearing a pair of jeans and a loose top with flowers on it. Her hair was still down, and he had a feeling she'd called something into the station to excuse them both for the day. Oh, there it was then, they'd be starting with her cult first, apparently.

He inclined his head and nodded toward the detective. "I've saved you a plate, darling. I couldn't find the syrup when puttering around the kitchen, but I'm sure you can make do with the powdered sugar I did find."

His partner eyed the mess on the kitchen table and shrugged. "Monkey, I called school today and said you weren't feeling well." 

"I'm okay."

She nodded but stroked the little girl's cheek. "I think that today, we're all taking a day off. Lucifer and I aren't going to the station today, called them too. In a little bit, I'm going to call Grandma. She films today for her show, but she can be back here for dinner tonight. I think we all need that."

"Can Lucifer and I do things? I have a new crayon set."

"I mostly dabble in stick figures," Lucifer confessed. He'd had eons to learn and, while he adored music and, alright, sometimes offered an editor's eye to some of the writers he'd found _fascinating_ over his vacations on earth, 2D art was beyond him. Trixie at eight was far better than he at drawing. "But perhaps we can later."

"Monkey," the detective said, her tone low and warning. "You can't just bug Lucifer all day. He and I have lots of things to talk about."

"Cause of work and murders and stuff?"

"Some but also about trying to figure out more about me and you."

"And our wings?"

She nodded and stroked Trixie's hair. "Exactly, and we don't want to bug him too much."

"It's no bother, detective." And where had that even come from. Help him, this woman would be the death of him and not even because of her odd powers or burning (to him) wings. Five months ago, Lucifer was the ultimate hedonist and playboy. Somewhere along the way he'd started wanting to work and was working with the police force, he'd learned restraint (well enough to turn down the detective's drunken offers), and he was actually offering to help sit a child. Oh, if his father or siblings could see this, they had to be laughing now. Some king of hell he was.

She fixed her lips in a firm line. "Trixie-babe, get some clothes on, and then you can watch Netflix on your tablet for a bit. I need to talk about some case stuff with Lucifer first. But, alright, we can all color later."

Subtext was clear to him, even if Trixie didn't get it. The detective was still suspicious of him, which fair, as he was somewhat nervous about what she actually was. He understood that she didn't know anymore than she did, but he needed to approach the situation with somewhat of a level head. Being near the detective tended to destroy his self-preservation instincts, but he wasn't quite sure what she was, how far to trust her. He could accept, though it stung, that she felt the same, especially where Trixie's safety was concerned.

"But we can color, right?" Trixie asked, looking at Lucifer.

She had a good glare; he had to give the urchin that.

"Yes, of course, spawn," he said. "Now, let me talk with your mum, okay?"

She nodded and hurried to her room. "Okay, see you later, Lucifer." With that, she pulled her sliding door behind her.

The detective poured herself a cup of coffee from where Lucifer had started the maker an hour ago for her. "Did you do that or did she?"

"Your spawn can't cook. She can stir fine, I suppose. Only got a bit of egg here or there."

"You know what I mean."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Do I?"

"The wings, did she come out of her room like that or did you ask her to show them again?"

"I said she could do as she pleased with them. She pulled them out herself." He didn't mention that he might have cajoled her a little there. In the end, Trixie had decided on it, even after realizing he had nothing "devily" he'd be willing to show her in return.

"She shouldn't-"

Lucifer shrugged. "There's no harm in it. We all know, and I'm not going to be shocked by them."

"Last time you touched wings like that…" she stilled, her voice wavering a little. "Mine burn you, so it's for the best to keep them tucked away."

"Hers don't. I suspect she's either too young, too human, or both. Her wings are mostly down."

"I don't think I follow."

"Down? Like in pillows or baby ducklings? Have you never been to a petting zoo, detective?"

"Have you?"

"I've been around a manger or two, not why you'd think, but when you run through human history you tend to run into their livestock too. But most of her feathers are down-child feathers. She couldn't fly on those wings if she wanted to, doubt they'd function for that for a few years more. She needs her primaries to come in and I could have said this all in Enochian and you'd be following just as well."

"I…well, I don't know much about feathers or wings."

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Why ever not. You have them? Didn't you ever even try and research the analogue in bird wings? They're not the same, of course, but a book about a crow here or a dove there is better than nothing at all."

"I didn't want to know. I don't take mine out if I can help it, and Dan and I both think-"

"Oh, I just bet the douche has thoughts about what to do with her wings."

"Lucifer," the detective said, her eyes blazing back at him. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Dan's a good guy, and he's not the best husband because he's too into the job and I get that but he's better actually now that we're separated. He takes Taco Tuesdays seriously now and we do things as a family where we can. I don't want her to just have her wings out unless she's had a nightmare and can't help it."

"So, she learns they're only to be there when she's scared?"

The detective said her mug down. "It's what I learned about mine."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "And do you know why you have to take wings out eventually? Do you even know why birds-sorry best analogy although celestials do as well-_preen_."

"If we hide ours, then…"

"You're not normal, detective. Clearly, and neither is the urchin. You're better."

Her eyes were black again, and Lucifer was still unsure if Chloe understood she could do that, that when she grew truly angry her eyes went obsidian and the air around them felt cold as ice. Somehow, he didn't think she did.

"We're not. I'm a monster, and I made a mistake, and I hoped for something better, and then I dragged my monkey into this, and it's all my fault. We're not better. I can't be."

He wanted to reach out and hug her, which was something they done once or twice before, but they weren't…if he startled her worse, she'd run or mist or fly away, whichever option she chose, and he didn't want to scare her away. So, Lucifer stayed tight against the wall and didn't move.

"You're not a monster."

"I hurt your hand and I wasn't even trying."

"It's all better now. I've had over six hours to heal up and the skin's right as rain. If I could have gone back to the penthouse, it would have been better even faster."

Her eyes sank back to blue, and he was gladdened by that. Her eyes were too beautiful, too limpidly blue to go dark for long. Like that was a crime against nature, herself. "I don't want Trixie to use her wings much. Honestly, I hope if we figure out what I am, and who mom sold my soul to…I was hoping we could undo it? I don't know, but Trixie's half human. If we could just figure out which Pagan whatever since you don't think I'm a demon."

"That's an area I'm an expert in, detective. You are assuredly not a demon."

"Okay, great. Well, anyway, one less awful thing to be afraid of."

"Mazikeen would disagree. However, I think I understand your point. You don't want your child to get used to her wings because you're going to try and find a way to rid her and, if possible, _both of you_ of their presence."

Chloe nodded and ran a hand through her halo of golden hair. "Exactly. Besides, I…how can they not be awful?"

He frowned back at her. "Do you hate hers that badly?" 

She grinned even if she were upset. "They're adorable, of course not."

"But you hate yours."

"You cut yours off so I don't expect a lecture here, Satan."

"I prefer Lucifer…or Old Scratch if you must. Anyhoo, we're focused on you. You hate yours, yes?"

"I want them gone. I want to be normal, and I want that for Trixie, badly."

"What did your father want?"

The detective stilled. "Excuse me?"

"Did he find you monstrous?"

"Of course not! My dad was the best, and I was always just his…" she sighed. "At first, I was his little monkey, that's where I got the habit for calling Trixie that. But after my wings came, he was so awed by them. He used to call me his 'little raven.' I don't…he was such a good person."

"It wouldn't be hard to appreciate them. I'm not denying that your father seemed like a good bloke, someone who all the other cops looked up to-I've noticed his placard at the precinct-but it wouldn't take a saint to appreciate how beautiful they are." He stopped short of saying how beautiful she was as he figured she'd infer it was a pick up line, even though for once it wasn't that at all.

"I just…it's safest and best if Trixie tries not to have them out deliberately. I can't help mine stay up from three to dawn, but she can. It's just better."

He shrugged. "For whom?"

"I know this is what you do. You barrel into things and stir the pot because even if you hate your dad or whatever."

"Not strong enough a word, I assure you, detective."

"Anyway, you also just like sowing chaos because you can. I have rules of Trixie because they keep her safe."

"And ashamed."

"I…I don't want that for her, but I can't help how I feel about my wings either. It's just…maybe you could leave the parenting to people who actually have kids." She wrinkled her nose at that. "Oh wait, I mean mom wasn't in that kind of cult but have you ever?"

"Have I what now?"

"Kids? Are there like…you have a lot of sex and it's been thousands of years and help me out here," she trailed off, her cheeks flushing pink.'

"I would never want to. I tolerate the urchin, but I loathe children in general, and people say I'm a monster. However, there's no way I could have anyway. Celestials and humans cannot mix that way. Nephilim and, well," he gave a bitter laugh. "the antichrist as a myth. Ta ever so for thinking I had restraint."

"You don't."

"True, but I'd be smart enough not to have a legion of antichrists, thank you very much. No interest in that, detective, none.

"But I'm doing the best I can to protect her. She's already lost a lot, and it's hard and scary for her. I have you now, and we can figure out whatever deal my mom made, get it undone or the terms changed, and then Trixie can be really normal. Maybe both of us. That's all I want."

He gave her a small, formal bow. "Glad you're so excited to have Satan as your tool."

"Lucifer…"

"I merely think that as things stand now, you both need to deal with _what_ you are. Should we find the entity your mother messed with, then that may very well change. But for right now, you have powers you're not even aware you're using, and the urchin has wings that were in desperate need of preening. You can't just leave the dead feathers or the unaligned ones in there. It _itches_, Chloe."

"Huh?"

"Wings, they itch. Surely you understand that."

"I…well, my back's itched since they grew in." She sighed. "Sometimes it's so bad I just want to rub my back and shoulders against a wall. I figured that was how they were supposed to be!"

He sighed and finally stepped forward from his corner of the kitchen. He didn't reach out to touch her because after last night on the balcony, the detective was still twitchy. However, he did lower the tenor of his voice, tried to calm down their argument. "They aren't. I can't…clearly, your full-grown feathers are a bit of a conundrum for me."

"They're like your kryptonite."

"Nothing so dramatic, I'm sure," he replied, winking at her. "However, I will teach the urchin how to preen a bit more today, and she can help with yours. I honestly cannot imagine the agony you've grown accustomed to if no one has ever in your life straightened your feathers for you. Not even once?"

The detective sighed and sipped her coffee before replying. "My dad did when I was little. I mean, I tried not to use them. I tried never even to let them out, but sometimes if I had nightmares and they'd just come out, Dad would get me to fall back asleep by stroking them. He used to say they'd get everywhere, and it would take him hours to get them all in line again. It always felt nice. I…so after he died, no one ever did, no."

"Your mother?"

The detective set her cup down and busied herself with cleaning hers and Trixie's dishes in the sink. "I think it was too much for her. I mean, she's not as scared or sometimes freaked out by the whole thing as Dan-and don't huff over there Lucifer; he's good around Trixie just more nervous around me."

"Once a douche…"

"Anyway, I think seeing our wings…it makes mom feel guilty so she just can't."

"Penelope should feel guilty."

"I think mom figured she'd pay the price with the cult and the whatever she made the deal with on her own. I don't think it occurred to her once till I was six and my wings grew in, that she'd accidentally set her daughter and then granddaughter up to pay it instead. You know?"

"Regardless, let me at least help you and your spawn understand how to care for them-much as I am able; your wings vex me a bit-so you don't itch all the time or have disheveled wings. That's just a travesty."

The detective sighed and turned back from the sink. "Well, it has been a very long time with all this itching, but you can't…you can't touch mine."

"I've no intention of a repeat performance, although I'm sure we can figure out the reason I can't quite touch them."

She blanched. "Or touch them at all."

"A great mystery to unravel. Like I said, I've gotten good at that of late. Now, detective, I think we all know the next step in this is for you to call up the Vampire Queen, herself. We need to know exactly who she ran with so we can start figuring out how to help you and the urchin, am I right?"

"Yeah, I…"

He shrugged and brought the skillet over to wash in the sink as well. "You're wrong, you know."

"About the wings? Trixie's seven, and she really needs to learn not to have them out around the wrong people."

"I'm far from the wrong person. Who knows more about wings-well the angelic kind alas-than I do?"

"I just…"

He let the water steep over the pan and looked at her, eyes focused totally on the lost expression in her eyes. "Perhaps this will work, and we will find the Pagan whatever your mom messed with. One day, that being will wave a magic wand or do some blood magic or say 'abracadabra' and you'll be human, great. If you'd want to be that, bit of a downgrade if you ask me."

"Lucifer," she said, her tone flat.

"Anyway, until then, darling, you are as you are, and whatever that is isn't monstrous."

"You've been trying to get into my pants since the first day you met me."

"I should probably admit at this point that _Hot Tub High School_ was on DVD in the first hotel I stayed at once I came to earth almost six years ago for retirement. I've been fantasizing about you, detective, for a sight longer than that."

"Ugh, perfect," but the usual disgust and frustration wasn't in her voice. Interesting. "Of course, you'd say I wasn't a monster because you have some stupid need to get me in bed just cause your mojo doesn't work on me. It's like that ultimate game of hard to get but it doesn't have to do with me even as a person, just cause your pride in your ability is wounded."

"Assuredly not, detective, but that's…it's neither here nor there at the moment."

"Isn't it" she asked, pulling her hair back messily in a hair tie.

"No, not today. My point is that I ruled for untold epochs in Hell. I may not know about every pantheon or supernatural being on earth, but I certainly know ever brute and demon Hell has to offer. I'm worse than any of them." He wasn't sure why he mentioned that. Talking about that side of himself now that the detective well and truly knew wasn't fun, wasn't a game. It just made him feel soiled somehow. However, in the interest of disclosure, he needed her to understand who she was dealing with too. If she thought she were the dangerous one in their (now) warped, little partnership, she was wrong. "But I know a monster when I see one, believe me, and neither you or Beatrice are it."

"Sure, I…let me get my cell. I need to call my mom. I've just been putting it off because…"

"You're well over thirty years overdue for answers, Chloe. I…whatever happens, I'll be right here."

She quirked her head at him as she made her way back to the stairs. "Is it weird?"

"The last twenty-four hours have been surreal, even for me, although I confess I'm rather glad you aren't a sibling sent on a spy mission. That would have been untenable."

"Yeah, good point." She shrugged and ran her hand along the railing. "I just mean, you're comforting, Lucifer. At first, I was annoyed by you cause you're a walking sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen."

"I do try, but all witnesses do genuinely love me."

"Wonder why that is."

He winked. "But?"

"Then, we were kind of friends but in a weird place when I got way too drunk and it was dumb of me to come to Lux then anyway."

"We weathered it and, as I've mentioned, no sex and no Rosemary's baby. So good on us, detective."

"But, I mean now…I find you comforting. Are you supposed to find the devil comforting?"

He soured at that; arms crossed over his chest again. "You mean, is that a power of mine?"

"Not exactly."

"Detective, believe it or not, despite my fearsome reputation, I gladly offer succor to friends who need it. Second, if it relieves you any, clearly your child and you both are immune to my 'mojo,' as you call it. Whatever you see with me here is genuine. I wouldn't have forced it any other way, but with you and Trixie I literally cannot. If you find me a comfort, then, shock of shocks, it's because I am."

The detective nodded, that pink tinge now creeping down her neck as well as up her cheeks. "Well, good then, because I think Trixie adores you."

"Just Trixie, huh?"

"Shut up, Lucifer." And with that, she was hurrying back up the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

She wasn't used to this level of scrutiny. Not like this.

Chloe Decker had seen her father's shocked yet empathetic eyes gazing over her wings for the first time at six, been a short-lived teen idol at nineteen and, God help her, when damn _Hot Tub Time Machine_ got added to Netflix, she had even more gawking aimed her way at the station until Dan threatened to beat heads in. Speaking of, she'd had her ex look upon her with utter horror after everything with Trixie's nightmares and wings…and her own. Now, when they met to trade off Trixie, there was always fear there. Odd. Something she'd never seen in his eyes once on duty, but it was there every time he gazed at her.

She was even used to Lucifer studying her like a puzzle. At first, despite whatever the fuck she was, Chloe assumed he'd been bullshitting her about his mojo, his so-called ability to draw out desires because it didn't seem possible. As she realized that Lucifer was something _other_ too, that he wasn't delusional and actually was _that_ Lucifer-at least she'd suspected it heavily till it was confirmed last night for sure-he'd become obsessed with her. She still figured it was more about an affront to his pride, the fact there was a woman out there who wouldn't fall at his feet. But she wasn't sure anymore if his regard for her and his fixation on her were just attempts to find a way to charm her even without his mojo.

Not now.

Not as he sat in a corner of her living room, using an old battered laptop of Dan's that he hadn't taken with him after the separation. It was good enough for him to start research with. For her part, she was trying to field the few emails the precinct was sending her. The forensic report on poor Rose wasn't completed yet, and the search for the ceremonial knife stolen from the Filii Hircus had netted nothing. But even like this, sitting at opposite corners of her living room, she could feel his gaze.

Granted, Lucifer Morningstar stared at everyone. She figured the bulk of that came from the fact his ability to draw out desires was dependent on eye contact. He had to stare deeply to mesmerize those he spoke with. But the habit was unnerving; he rarely blinked. It was the first thing that really stuck with her, even after the seeing the desire mojo a few times and hazily feeling Lucifer _had been shot_ by Jimmy Barnes but being too injured herself to be sure. Passing in and out of consciousness in the hospital, her thoughts had circled that same, stupid thought:

_He doesn't blink_.

Not really.

It was that first real tug at her instincts, that she'd finally found something _other_, like her. Lucifer was very much a resident of the uncanny valley, when you realized what you were looking at.

But the gaze he was regarding her with was neither inhuman (despite its source, and she wasn't exactly one to throw stones) nor was it confused, like someone stuck on completing a Rubik's cube. No, there was a genuine affection there…something soft that she hadn't seen before.

He thought he was being sneaky. Lucifer chanced glances up from his end of the cult research-her problem, not their LAPD case-every so often, but she caught the looks.

Finally, she set her own precinct-issued computer aside and frowned at him.

"What?"

"I don't understand, Detective." Lucifer focused on the screen before him as he wrote something down on the legal pad beside him. Even from across the room, she could catch the hints of a looping script, much like calligraphy, across the page. "What have I done?"

"You're staring."

"I sometimes gaze around the room. I enjoy taking breaks from reading through the pedantry of Wikipedia."

"Wait? What?"

"Well, I am not an expert on the supernatural. I told you that. I know of the rumors I've heard, the things I've caught a glimpse of on my sojourns to earth, and sometimes the terms were from ancient tongue, from Babylonian or Sumerian…from civilizations that no longer exist or even have written records to be more than memory to even _me_."

"Oh." She deflated some at that. It was one thing to suspect Lucifer was _that_ Lucifer, a second to have it confirmed for her, but a complete other level and mindfuck to think about all that entailed. That he was so old that he knew what the universe was like before there'd even been an earth. Nope, and her head was spinning again. "I didn't…still…I mean Wikipedia?"

"I need the current terminology for our suspects' list."

"Still doesn't explain why you keep staring at me."

"I'm not."

"You never lie."

"I occasionally glance around a room you are in. I'm sorry; should I only focus on the screen before me?"

She sighed and raked a hand through her hair. "This is why I wanted to still wait before I figured out how to ask you about, well, me."

"I don't understand, Detective." Brown eyes, so large and concerned and very different from the terrifying (she could admit that) red flames she'd seen last night. "I thought we were on better footing now that we understand each other." He offered her that insufferable smirk of his. "In fact, I do believe not three hours ago, you said that I was comforting."

"I did…and it's better, but I just…I get the feeling when you look at me now, you're just thinking about _them_."

"The wings?"

"Of course!"

Lucifer set his laptop aside and strode across the room. He covered the expanse of the living room in about three, long strides. He sidled up next to her on the couch but didn't actually touch her, not even shoulder to shoulder. She appreciated the consideration.

"And since you saw a glimpse into my devilish side, does that change how you see me?"

_Yes, of course_.

But she knew that wouldn't make him feel better. In fact, knowing Lucifer's capricious streaks, it would lead him to shut down and, more likely than not, tell her to deal with her own problems and flounce back to Lux. They were still so new to being partners after all. But how could any being see the eyes like flames that had driven Jimmy Barnes to full out crazy town and not be worried. Lucifer had joked yesterday-damn had it been just yesterday?-that he wasn't like the Satan in the painting because he "manscaped."

Maybe Lucifer didn't have horns and hooves, but something else went with the eyes she couldn't unsee, and, yeah, it was a lot to reconcile with the Lucifer she knew so far.

So how couldn't he feel the same way about her fucked up wings?

"I don't know," she said, offering him something.

He pursed his lips but didn't leave. It was at least some progress. She figured the one saving grace keeping him from stomping off with even that lukewarm reassurance was the fact he'd promised her seven-year-old he'd color with her. The Devil wanted to sit down with crayons and construction paper and color with her child.

That was probably not a good thing. Maybe. She wasn't completely sure.

But after Dan's reaction…Trixie adored Lucifer and maybe it wasn't quite fair to use him like that either, but Trixie needed at least one male role model (okay, term used super loosely cause the drugs and sex and general shadiness weren't for Trixie to emulate) who cared for her. And there was little doubt that for whatever reason and however he feigned disinterest, Lucifer did care for Trixie.

Despite her anger at seeing Trixie with her wings out…after all, both she and her mom had talked to Trixie about the rules for wings more than once…Chloe had been so heartened to come down the stairs and see Lucifer helping Trixie clean her wings. What was the word again? She'd already forgotten, and, yes, she did feel somewhat embarrassed she didn't know how best to care for them, at least for her daughter's sake. If her own rotted off tomorrow, it couldn't come too soon.

Finally, after sorting through his thoughts, Lucifer spoke. "I see. Shall I go? I thought it would be best if we both spoke with Penelope."

She swallowed and nodded harder than she had to in overcompensation for her earlier insult. "No, but I have to be honest or try. Yeah, it's one thing to guess you're the devil but another to know and see it, so I know it has to change how you see me when I have wings that burned you. I mean, how couldn't it?"

"Well, you always have been a bit of a pain in my side, Detective. I suppose a bit of a skin rash is only an evolution of the way all your rules chafe at me."

"It's not funny."

"But that's not how I would ever look at you. To be honest, I'm a bit in awe."

"Because of the…"

"It has very little to do with the blasted wings," he said, raking a hand through his hair. She wanted to laugh a little at the way it let some of his curls loose. "It has to do with you, who you are. I knew you were a tough woman with notable instincts when I first met you. Now, I've seen how truly isolated you've been and how you've been stomped on by more than the boys' club and the Palmetto poppycock. You've raised a child that, as children go, is almost tolerable. You should be commended."

"She can probably hear you. Trixie listens at doors."

"The urchin knows she doesn't wash her hands enough. If she did, I might upgrade her to survivable if I'm around her drunk."

"Lucifer!"

He smirked again, and it was nice to see that after this dumb, stilted conversation had begun. Like maybe they could be more honest around each other and not shred their partnership. "I never cared for spawn. The fact that Trixie is basically an exception is quite the honorific."

"Sure, but I…you still keep looking at me!"

"It's because I respect you more than I did even last night and, honestly, after the way I've seen you solve case after case when half the LAPD seems to busy to be arsed to do their jobs, well, I was already impressed."

"I just…if you respect me more because I'm a whatever I am…I'm still me."

"Yes, a no-frills cop and single mother with a nauseatingly strict moral code and a boringly brown wardrobe who won't let me smoke in the house even though I'm fairly certain mystical children can't get lung cancer from secondhand smoke. I'm quite aware of who you are, Detective." He shrugged and went back to his chair to gather up his legal pad before sitting back with her again. "The question is, do you know who you are?"

"I think the point of all of this is that I don't." The words caught in her throat, thick and difficult.

She'd spent thirty years desperately trying to will things away, to pretend this wasn't her life. Chloe had mastered denial at nineteen when her father had died, and she'd spend night after night awake and reading through whatever she could find in the house to try and avoid the nightmares. She'd redoubled the effort when her wings had changed, had become so like smoke at their ends and allowed her to shift through shadow as easily as she breathed. When they came out and she couldn't push them away till dawn.

But a year ago, the denial started to crumble. First with Trixie's mistake and then with her partner who was also anything other than human. The obvious inroad to whatever magical bullshit world she was actually part of.

She couldn't run anymore or hide from what she was, but God, did she want to.

Lucifer nodded. "Well, I think that your springboard is excellent, since you're a shrewd detective and better-than-most mother. If we find out the rest, it'll add icing to the Chloe Decker cake."

"That sounds probably more perverted than you meant it to."

He licked his lips and waggled his eyebrows at her. "I can make innuendo out of anything, Detective."

"Yes, and I'm so lucky." She sighed and patted his shoulder.

They'd been closer, but this was different. She wasn't just Chloe Decker, cop, and he wasn't just Lucifer Morningstar, possibly insane and definitely debauched club owner. He was the Lord of Hell and she was…whatever she was; she could hurt him whether she wanted to or not. She didn't think of him as an enemy; she wouldn't have begged for his help if she did. However, she had no idea why he still wanted to trust her. She had powers he clearly shouldn't be exposed to. It was just…they couldn't just have casual touches right now. No hugs-not that they'd shared more than a couple-or no him just touching her elbow to lead her around a crime scene. Nothing that casual anymore, at least until she was sure he didn't think she was _still_ sent to hurt him.

He said one thing, but, seriously, if she could hurt him faster and with less effort than Maze, how could he be that relaxed around her?

"You are. Most of L.A.'s hottest would sign up for this much personal attention from me," Lucifer continued. "Now, do you want to hear my list of possible species?"

She swallowed hard, and her mouth felt like ashes anyway. That word…it was logical of course. Hell, it was _true_, but she wished she could just say "species-human," like literally everyone else she knew.

Lucifer frowned. "Forgive me. I suppose that sounds rather clinical. I'll change that to 'contenders' then, shall I?"

"Right, uh, what have you got for me?"

"Well, I started thinking perhaps a siren."

"Aren't those mermaids?"

"Sometimes the word has been conflated, but in the original Greek myths, sirens were part woman and part bird, sometimes sparrow, sometimes birds of prey. Similarly, I thought harpy might be possible. I've some passing familiarity with Japanese deities-don't ask, didn't go very well-and you could possibly have some Tengu in you. There are also the Valkyries, which I figure you have more of an idea of. Norse mythology still seems rather popular with you lot, especially with all those delightful Marvel movies and that Thor fellow. I know he revs my engines. Anyhoo, the Valkyries are winged to help ferry dead souls off the battlefields and to Valhalla of course. Then there's Isis or, more accurately, one of her descendants. I have entertained the idea of fully part demigoddess. If that were the case, then Isis had winged depictions and could ferry the dead to the underworld as well…"

She stood up and even though it wasn't yet noon, she found herself in her kitchen with her hand around a bottle of wine. _No, not like this_. She couldn't. If she started drinking now because this was too upsetting, she'd never stop. It had been too upsetting since she'd first spread her wings as a child. She could hear the even candidates and not freak out.

Damn it, she could.

She set the wine bottle down and grabbed a Coke from the fridge instead. "Isis?"

"I said it was possible, not that it's guaranteed."

"I don't even know what to do with that, Lucifer. I thought you said that there weren't too many things I could be!"

He stood and walked to the kitchen as well but leaned against the refrigerator. It was so odd to see Lucifer respect her personal boundaries for once, just another sign of how her stupid wings were messing up the equilibrium of their relationship, nebulous as it had always been. "I said you are not a demon or an angel, and there are many species of demon so that eliminates more nominees than you'd think. However, there are _many_ pantheons and they are real. There are many myths that have grains of truth. If it only comes from another type of deity than my Father or from something terrestrial, there are still quite a few suspects to work through." He frowned and his eyes seemed to fill with genuine concern. "I…I do not have to share my research as I compile it. Surely after speaking with your mother tonight, I can narrow down the most likely beings. Forgive me."

"I'm the one who's messed up." _And possibly part Egyptian goddess of death. Perfect. _

"I assure you that you are not. I am the furthest thing from human. I am older than anything save my eldest siblings, our Father, and the Goddess of All Creation."

"Whoa, there's a goddess?"

"Mother and Father had a rather fractious divorce after I was banished. It's too painful a tale for today or ever, but you know how they say history is written by the victors? Well, the bible is so very careful to omit her equal contribution to the very literal Big Bang."

"I just…this is too much. There are too many choices for what I could be!"

"And I find it exciting. Humanity has always intrigued me. It has grown on me for companionship and not even in always a sexual way since my vacation. I have employees I am fond of with whom I don't sleep. Truth be told, I like Dr. Linda's company even now that she only wants me to pay her in actual money. Shame that. I swear that woman is wasting her best talents…"

She rolled her eyes. That felt familiar. She could deal in a world where Lucifer made innuendo about even his own shrink, who might have earned it a little for sleeping with her client to start with. Chloe Decker could not deal in a world where she might be a Valkyrie or a siren or a whatever from a myth she hadn't even heard before.

"Lucifer?"

"Yes, Detective?"

"Can you give me a moment. I need…I need to breathe. I can tell you think that being more than human isn't only the norm but is quite the gift. I just want to be like everyone else. I can't be excited with the research, only scared."

Strong arms were around her shoulders before she realized Lucifer had _even moved._ Part of her froze from that, from underestimating him. Some small instinctual part of her mind filed away that she hadn't realized how fast he really was, that it would be smart to figure out some of his limits too. She forced that way. It was probably her cop instincts, always on the lookout for an ambush.

Nothing more.

Lucifer held her tightly and stroked her hair. "It'll be alright, Detective. I think you and the urchin are better off embracing all that you are. I won't deny that. However," he said, sighing a little. "I grant that the whole point of this exercise is to track down _what_ your mother made the deal with, and you may very well be right, perhaps there is a way to undo this. You would be exceptional either way, of course."

"You just like me cause I'm not an easy catch."

He stood back and those endlessly deep brown eyes gazed back at her. For the first time, she could see his actual age in them, and the shift in that reality-the weight of that realization-was staggering. "No, Detective. It's far more than that." Then, as easily as changing a channel, Lucifer fixed his cufflinks and offered her a debonair smile. "Dearie me, I think that I'm overdue for coloring time with the urchin. Will you be alright? Perhaps going over more of any possible leads with the Filii Hircus murders will work better, angles you can better understand?"

"Thank you, Lucifer."

"As you wish."

Lucifer eyed the masterpiece he'd made and handed Trixie back the crayons she'd loaned him. "What do you think, fledgling?"

"What's a fledgling again?"

"A baby bird."

"I'm _not_ a baby."

He winked at her. "No, but your feathers must be three-quarters down. Lovely as your wings are, Beatrice, you won't be flying with them for years."

"Nuh-uh!"

"Very much so, child. You need long primary feathers, among others, to make wings work. You don't have a single one. Thus, you are a fledgling. I suppose it's an upgrade from urchin."

Large brown eyes considered him. "I guess that is cooler."

"Much better an honor. Now, am I or am I not the next Picasso, fledgling?"

Trixie regarded his drawing seriously, her tongue sticking out at the corner of her mouth. "They're all stick figures."

"Well, yes, but you can still discern who is who. The tall bald idiot with the feathers and also the stick up his backside is of course my brother Amenadiel. The one with the knives is Mazikeen, my mostly bodyguard."

"I like Maze! She's my friend."

"So, I have heard that story. She used to be mine, but I am unsure on if that will continue. It honestly depends on how well she works with me against my brother, but that's not a detail you need to concern yourself with, child."

"And who is this?" she asked, pointing to the third figure in line.

"I had to take some artistic license, but the badge should make it obvious that's the douche…I mean, your father."

"Dad doesn't have like weird googly eyes!"

"I cannot draw clueless eyes perfectly in stick-form. That's what I could approximate."

"And the long haired one is mom?"

"Yes."

She frowned and pulled out a red crayon. "You should add red hearts around it."

"Why ever would I do that?"

"Duh!" Trixie said, practically vibrating in her seat. "Because you love her. It's real obvious."

Lucifer almost choked. That was unfathomable. He found the detective attractive. Of course, he did. Clearly so had the casting director of _Hot Tub Time Machine_ and, he surmised, many a teenage boy back in 2001. He did respect her, that had always been true, and of course he wanted to sleep with her. Lucifer wanted to sleep with most people who were an eight or above in this town. The Detective was clearly a ten, even in her painfully respectable precinct appropriate wardrobe, which, honestly, was quite the feat. But love? That was nothing more than the silly assertion of a child. He was the devil. He didn't love anything.

He had no idea what that was even like, not from family and not from a bed partner either.

Absurd.

"No, I shall not add hearts. I'm not a seven-year-old girl."

"Dumb not to, but it's not my drawing. And the tallest one with the hair and the money in his hand?"

"Me of course. I'm also near a piano so it should be very obvious. Are you a bit thick, child?"

"No, but you should draw horns."

"I don't have horns. It's all slander."

Trixie giggled and leaned into him. "You're funny." 

"Oh, I'm aware. I'm quite the raconteur."

She frowned and handed back his opus. Trixie picked up her own, but she had it folded between her hands. Whatever she'd drawn was on a white printer paper, but she was waiting to share it. He'd never thought of the spawn as one for modesty.

"Beatrice, do you want to show me yours? It's alright if it's not ready."

"No…well, maybe?"

"You know you're a better drawer than I am." That was true. Probably everyone was, but he couldn't give much of a toss about fine arts. He liked to view them, but he had no patience to learn them. Some things even eternity didn't help one either like or do better. "I'm sure it's lovely."

Trixie nodded even as her cheeks colored red. "I…it's okay if you don't like it."

He frowned even as she handed him the paper. Unfolding it neatly, he looked over her work. The work was good, as far as what he assumed a seven-year-old (mostly) human could do. It was much easier to perceive than his stick figures and colored quite deliberately. There were a dozen fluffy white clouds and in between were Trixie and the detective, obvious by their respective long hair and their large, black wings. But what Lucifer hadn't expected was him. Well, a child's version of him in a blocky dark suit and with white wings of his own. He had to smirk to himself about the reddened visage. It was true to life, to be honest, a close approximation of how he could have appeared between his wings and his Devil Face. Well, when he still had wings.

What was less accurate were the horns.

He turned to Trixie, who was sitting more still than he'd ever seen her. "I do _not_ have horns. I'm hardly a goat."

"That's what my abuela says."

"That Satan has horns?"

"And goat hooves and legs."

"I'm decidedly _not_ a furry, fledgling."

"What's a furry?"

Lucifer grinned. "Ask your father. But that aside, Beatrice, it's quite lovely."

"It would have been cool to do that." She leaned into him, her little shoulder barely coming up halfway against his side.

For the second time in as many days and for the first time since the beach almost six years ago, Lucifer mourned for his wings. No, he would never be tied to Father, not again, but there was something that might have been nice in at least flying again, in taking the detective with him. Not the urchin. He wasn't a babysitter. Not bloody yet, at least. It would have been chaos to supervise a whatever Trixie was in the air. After all, he knew _nothing _about teaching flight, since all the host had been created understanding the mechanics of it. But, logistics aside, there was something decidedly sweet about Trixie's drawing and despite his black heart, a small part of him regretted that would never come to pass.

"I think that's very true." He frowned as she took the drawing back from him. "Would you mind terribly if we traded?"

"Huh?"

"Perhaps you can put my masterpiece on your wall this time. I'll even sign it for you. If you'd be so kind, Beatrice, to do the same with your work. I'd love to take it back to my home."

"Will you hang it up?"

He could admit that possibility was unlikely. There was no way he could explain to any partner why he had a child's drawing around the penthouse. It was surely a true orgy killer. Though he walk-in closet was off-limits. He loathed having anyone touch or ruin his designer stash. Perhaps hanging it there would suffice.

"I believe there is a place for it. However, next time you draw me, could you leave off the blasted horns?"

"Never!"

Her mother was perfectly on and every bit the diva she'd always been around the dinner table. Chloe was used to it. Penelope Decker had done anything larger than life for as long as Chloe could remember. She lived up to her Vampire Queen image, and to always talking up her career and playing for her audience. In this case, she'd fawned over Lucifer, who was being polite, but the flirtatiousness of his words was gone. He was no longer sucking up to her as he had back when she'd been in town a month or so ago. Granted, her mother was a bit less impressed with her partner after the ambush dinner that shouldn't ever have been. Still, her mother reveled in attention. God, under normal circumstances two narcissists this severe in one place should cause the planet to implode, but Lucifer was focused on their mutual research tasks, at least for now.

Still, they'd made it through the lasagna that she'd made and were finishing up the chocolate cake Lucifer had baked. No, she had no idea when the literal Prince of Darkness had found time to learn anything culinary. Also, it was sinfully decadent and probably the best cake she'd ever had. And, third, he'd clearly done it because Trixie had begged him into it, and she should probably be worried that her daughter was able to out-negotiate the Devil himself.

Then again, made being here on earth was softening Lucifer's edges, even if he'd deny it.

However, as they finished their meal, her mother was still talking about her shoot. No surprise there.

"It gets tiresome shooting a show with mostly twenty-somethings. I mean, granted, my role's prominent but I only need to be onset about two days out of eight. Still, I feel like I'm trying to supervise a kindergarten sometimes."

Lucifer chuckled. "You failed to mention which show, darling. Is it a pilot?"

Her mother dimmed a little at that. "It's on a younger network, more geared for the Gen Z set. It's a show called _Half Moon Bay_ about mermaids and I happen to run the local apothecary, so I mentor the teens on it."

"The teenagers I assume who are twenty-seven?" Lucifer purred.

"A couple but a few are barely eighteen and not nearly as well-behaved on set as Chloe was in her day. They don't teach these young thespians anything about the rules. Don't get me started on the endless selfies on their Instagrams between takes. It drives me wild."

"And on that note, Mom, let me get Trixie to bed, and I have a lot to talk about with you."

Trixie looked up and frowned. "Mom! I wanted to talk about everything with grandma. Not fair! They're my wings too!"

Her mother's eyes went wide, and she clearly struggled to laugh things off with Lucifer. "Children and their imaginations, you know how it is."

Lucifer leaned forward and, although his eyes did not change-didn't even flicker red, the air around him changed, and even though she wasn't affected by it directly, Chloe could _feel_ the power Lucifer was drawing around himself. When he smiled back at her mother, it was a feral look, one that he had flashed subjects across the interrogation room table.

"Now, Penelope, darling, I'm hardly an idiot. Besides, maybe there are more people out there with wings than you realize."

Her mother shivered and set a hand on Trixie's shoulder. "Who are you really, Lucifer?"

"An apt question for everyone around this table." He smiled kindly down at Trixie. "Come on, fledgling, and I'll get you ready for bed. I think this is for your mum and gran, don't you?"

"But they're my wings! I wanna know what I am too."

Chloe sighed and frowned back at her daughter. "Monkey, I promise I'm trying really hard to find that out. Lucifer, and I are really good detectives so you know we'll figure it out. But sometimes some of the things that grownups used to do…they're not always stories you should hear right away."

Trixie rolled her eyes and, okay, maybe Dan was right, and their daughter had gotten that habit from her after all. Great, she was doing it. "You mean that it'll have sex and stuff in it, and I'm not supposed to hear it."

Lucifer was about to say something stupid; Chloe was certain of it. She glared at him before he could make a sex joke in front of her seven-year-old. "Don't even, Lucifer."

"I was only going to-"

"No, you help Trixie get her teeth brushed and tucked in. I need to talk to my mom and then you come back. Monkey, when you're ready, we'll tell you what Grandma explained to us tomorrow after school."

"I can't stay home again? Lucifer didn't even get a chance to teach me how to help you pring your wings yet!"

The devil stood in one fluid motion and helped Trixie by pulling out her chair. "It's 'preen,' fledgling, but I can teach you more about it this weekend. We have plenty of time yet for good feather hygiene but let's leave your mum and gran to it."

"Will you read me a story?"

"Tonight, yes, but the shortest you have."

"Will you do voices?" she asked, and Chloe was watching her daughter wheedle Satan in real time.

"Monkey, not tonight. Teeth brushed, pj's on, and bed; that's it. I mean it."

Trixie frowned but finally nodded. "Alright, Mommy. I promise."

Lucifer held out his arm for her with his elbow bent just so. "Now, child, are you ready or not?"

Trixie looped her arms through his and they both disappeared upstairs to where the bathroom was so she could get her teeth brushed first. It was both courtly and ridiculously cute. What even was Chloe's life anymore?

Her mother had watched everything with eyes so wide that Chloe was worried they might roll out of her head. "What is going on?"

She tried to keep her voice calm and her tone low. The problem of her mother's house was that the walls were thin and soon enough Trixie would be nestled asleep in her room behind the sliding door. They'd probably have to go out to the balcony to talk anyway. Trixie would keep her ears pressed so hard to the door if they didn't.

"We have to talk about everything. I…I can't do this anymore. Trixie's hurting. Things are _not_ going well with Dan, and he's trying for her sake, but he's still pulling away. I can see it in his face even when he looks at her. Mom, it was one thing when all the secrets and the hiding and everything else was about me, but she's in this too. I wish she weren't…I wish she were just like her father, but she's not. So, I need to know more. I need to know what I am."

"I don't want to talk about my time with The Daughters of the Dark. I was foolish and selfish, and I just…can't we move on?"

Chloe blinked her eyes furiously to keep herself from crying. Standing up, she busied herself by clearing the plates first and taking them to the sink. While she scrubbed, Lucifer and Trixie made their way down the stairs and to her room. He shut the door and politely waited for her to change behind it.

"Urchin, don't dally. I fear a long night with all this family talk. I did promise to tuck you in so chop-chop." He shrugged and eyed her, even after he added the extra consonant pop on the "p's."

Her mom rabbited out of her seat and swept up the used glasses, scooting to the sink as well. "Why on earth does he have to be here? Why would you even tell him."

"Oh, she showed me, Penelope. Make no mistake on that, love."

Chloe rolled her eyes at the sky and then took a deep breath. "Lucifer, don't bait my mother. Mom, Lucifer's got a very good reason to be involved beyond being my investigative partner. I…just help me finish cleaning up."

"He shouldn't be here."

"I didn't make a deal like a selfish, thoughtless cow and damn-figuratively at least, I've no domain over whatever you've done-my daughter and granddaughter for my name on a marquee."

Her mother slammed her hand flat on the counter. "You told him about that too?"

"It was necessary."

"How?" her mother said, shoving her hands on her hips. "How dare you think you know anything about my family. I found you charming, at first, but I saw how you sabotaged the dinner with Junior. I can see how you like to stir things now. My choices have been my own, and they don't concern some club owner in the slightest."

Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest with slow, deliberate grace. Chloe felt the goosebumps rise over her skin. Lucifer was one for theatrics. He shouted, he ranted, he was like a child at some crime scenes…that much was true. However, when he got his most still was also when he was most deadly. She'd seen him stalk with deliberate, single-minded focus after Ty's agent like this.

Her mother sensed it too and tensed beside her.

When he spoke, his voice was low and calculating. "You know what I am, don't you, Vampire Queen? I've never hidden, and I never lie. You can feel it right now? I know that you can, that I am something so much more than human."

"I…you can't be _him_."

"The real Lucifer? Satan incarnate?" He shrugged again. "Of course, I am. How is that any stranger than what you've witnessed yourself, what you were a part of?"

"But you're not real?"

"And pagan demons are?" Chloe offered, her throat choking on the words. It wasn't exactly what her mom had sworn Chloe and Trixie's souls to, but it was something otherworldly and something bad. Lucifer didn't want to see it, but Chloe could. Hell, she could _feel_ it in her. "Mom, I needed help."

"So, you asked the Devil?"

Trixie opened the door then. She was wearing her Wonder Woman sleep shirt that came down past her knees and cradling Miss Alien to her chest. "Mommy? There's yelling."

She looked to Lucifer who nodded at her and then turned to smile broadly at Trixie. "Perhaps one story, fledgling, while your mum and gran talk on the balcony."

"So I can't hear them?"

He strode toward her and took her hand in his. "Yes, but I promise to tell you the good parts. Now, what are you reading?" 

"Mommy just started Harry Potter, and you don't even have to work hard to do the voices."

He eyed Chloe from around the room and gave a (what else) theatrically put-upon sigh. "The things I do for you, urchin. Well, lead on."

The door shut soon behind them and Chloe looked to the balcony. "Come on, Mom. We have _everything_ to talk about."


End file.
